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RICHARD  T.  STEVENSON 


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PRINCETON  • NEW  JERSEY 
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FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ROBERT  ELLIOTT  SPEER 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/missionaryinterpOOstev 


The  Missionary  Interpreta- 
tion of  History 

An  article  which  appeared  in  the  Methodist  Review  for 
July,  1905,  has  grown  to  the  present  size,  and  is 
commended  to  all  who  enjoy  its  story  of  triumph. 


0FP«5c?fe-, 

V Uy 

F'FB  2 1959 

rpi  A/r  . SE^v^> 

1 he  Missionary 
pretation  of  History 


By 


v 

Richard  T.  Stevenson,  Ph.  D. 

OHIO  WESLEYAN  UNIVERSITY 


CINCINNATI:  JENNINGS  AND  GRAHAM 
NEW  YORK:  EATON  AND  MAINS 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
Jennings  & Graham 


5xi  JEg  Wrfs 


Contents 


I. 

The  Coming  of  the  Man, 

Pack 

- 9 

II. 

His  Miracles, 

2 1 

III. 

New  Peoples, 

- 33 

IV. 

Brotherhood, 

66 

V. 

Philosophy, 

- - 83 

VI. 

Enthusiasm,  - 

94 

I 


The  Coming  of  the  Man 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  this  little 
book  is  an  attempt  to  solve  the  riddles  of 
history.  It  desires  to  present  in  its  own 
way  the  man  without  whose  work  in  the 
world  we  have  not  so  far  been  able  to  get 
along.  It  would  emphasize  an  explana- 
tion of  progress  after  the  fashion  of  one 
who  believes  profoundly  in  the  leadership 
of  Him  who  came  to  do  the  Father’s  will, 
and  who  gave  commission  to  others  to 
finish  the  work  He  had  begun. 

“There  is  not  only  an  economic  inter- 
pretation of  history,  but  an  ethical,  an 
aesthetic,  a political,  a jural,  a linguistic,  a 
religious,  and  a scientific  interpretation  of 
history.” 


9 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

In  such  wise  words  Professor  Seligman 
sets  forth  the  fact  of  the  complexity  of  his- 
tory, and  disposes  of  the  exaggerations  of 
the  school  of  thought  that  endeavors  to  ex- 
plain all  movements  of  civilization  from  the 
point  of  view  of  economics,  even  affirming 
that  Christianity  was  primarily  an  eco- 
nomic movement,  and  going  so  far  as  to 
apply  the  theory,  not  only  to  religion  but 
also  to  philosophy.  But  the  end  of  over- 
emphasis is  near  at  hand.  The  reaction 
has  already  set  in,  and  the  truth  appears  in 
the  vigorous  phrases  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
the  eminent  physicist,  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  of  July,  1905: 

“What  we  have  to  teach,  throughout,  is 
that  in  no  sort  of  way  is  man  to  be  the 
slave  of  his  environment.  ...  It  is 
not  himself  which  is  to  suit  the  environ- 
ment, but  he  is  to  make  the  environment 
suit  him.  This  is  the  one  irrefragable  doc- 
trine that  must  be  hammered  into  the  ears 


10 


The  Coming  of  the  Man 

of  this  generation  till  they  realize  its  truth 
and  accept  it.” 

It  is  evident  that  we  are  come  to  a time 
when  the  moral  and  spiritual  forces  in 
human  progress  are  getting  truer  recogni- 
tion than  a few  years  ago  when  undue  em- 
phasis upon  economics  minimized  the 
power  of  the  motives  which  could  not  be 
measured  in  bushel-baskets  or  weighed  in 
scales.  Not  only  is  the  ethical  life  not  sub- 
ordinated to  the  economic  life,  but,  as  the 
race  improves,  its  finer  elements  are  to  grow 
supreme. 

As  a mighty  agent  in  the  manifest  des- 
tiny of  the  race  let  us  study  a peculiar 
sort  of  man,  whose  presence  and  spirit  in 
history  have  to  be  reckoned  with.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  getting  on  without  him.  The 
Christian  Church  is  slowly  coming  to  its 
right  mind.  For  proof,  we  note  how  hos- 
tility has  effervesced  in  suspicion,  and  sus- 
picion has  changed  to  indifference,  and  in- 
11 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

difference  has  become  interest,  and  interest 
has  leaped  into  loyalty,  and,  finally,  loyalty 
has  been  transformed  into  a notable  pride 
in  the  fruits  of  the  toil  of  a singular  type 
of  man.  We  have  known  too  little  of  him. 
We  ought  to  know  vastly  more  of  him  and 
his  works;  for  to  remain  in  any  wise  ig- 
norant of  him  is  not  to  know  the  trend  of 
history  since  Calvary.  We  were  once  Gen- 
tiles, and  now  for  some  ages  have  been  in- 
trusted with  the  holy  ark  of  God’s  Cove- 
nant of  Peace  with  the  world.  We  were 
found  by  Him  in  the  gloom  of  our  ances- 
tral paganism.  To  make  us  inheritors  of 
the  benefits  of  the  grace  of  God  He  swung 
open  at  great  expense  a mighty  door, 
that  Christ  might  enter  our  hearts  and  na- 
tional life,  and  become  through  us  the  King 
of  the  kingdoms  of  the  whole  earth.  This 
man  is  unique  among  men.  He  swings 
down  the  centuries  with  a free  and  power- 
ful stride.  His  right  to  the  path  he  has 
12 


The  Coming  of  the  Man 

not  allowed  any  one  long  to  dispute.  He 
claims  to  have  but  one  business,  and  to 
breathe  but  one  consuming  passion.  He  is  a 
messenger  of  the  King  of  kings,  and  has 
his  eye  on  the  uttermost  shores  of  earth. 

At  the  foot  of  the  tablet  erected  to  the 
memory  of  John  Howard  in  St.  Paul’s, 
London,  are  the  words,  “He  trod  an  open 
but  unfrequented  path  to  immortality.”  To 
none  other  is  this  shining  tribute  to  the 
worth  of  the  work  of  the  Yorkshire  sheriff, 
who  gave  his  life  to  the  amelioration  of  the 
harsh  conditions  of  the  prisoners  in  Euro- 
pean jails,  more  appropriate  than  to  the 
man  who  first  started  around  the  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean  to  preach  out  of  their 
malign  power  the  superstitions  of  a dark 
age.  In  the  following  manner  Frederick 
Harrison,  not  the  most  sympathetic  re- 
corder of  peculiarly  spiritual  victories, 
speaks  of  the  first  great  missionary:  “We 
know  how  the  first  fellowship  of  the  breth- 
13 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

ren  met;  how  they  went  forth  with  words 
of  mercy,  love,  justice,  and  hope;  we  know 
their  self-denial,  humility,  and  zeal ; their 
heroic  lives  and  awful  deaths ; their  loving 
natures  and  their  noble  purposes ; how  they 
gathered  around  them,  wherever  they  came, 
the  purest  and  the  greatest;  how  across 
mountains,  seas,  and  continents  the  com- 
munion of  saints  joined  in  affectionate 
trust ; how  from  the  deepest  corruption  of 
the  heart  there  arose  a yearning  for  a truer 
life;  how  the  new  faith,  ennobling  the  in- 
stincts of  human  nature,  raised  up  the 
slave,  the  poor,  and  the  humble  to  the  dig- 
nity of  common  manhood,  and  gave  new 
meaning  to  the  true  nature  of  womanhood ; 
how,  by  slow  degrees,  the  Church,  with  its 
rule  of  right,  of  morality,  and  of  com- 
munion, arose;  how  the  first  founders  and 
apostles  of  this  faith  lived  and  died,  and  all 
their  gifts  were  concentrated  in  one,  of  all 
the  characters  of  certain  history  doubtless 
14 


The  Coming  of  the  Man 

the  loftiest  and  purest — the  unselfish,  the 
great-hearted  Paul.”  Surely  in  no  ordinary 
pattern  was  this  man  cast,  treading  to  im- 
mortality by  a path  open,  but  in  his  day 
too  little  frequented  even  by  unselfish  souls. 

Since  that  time  he  and  his  comrades  have 
been  filling  up  the  path  and  the  end  of  the 
journey  is  none  the  less  immortality.  Now 
they  seem  to  swarm  in  the  world’s  high- 
ways, and  even  to  give  a new  distinction  to 
the  unfrequented  byways.  No  one  can  in- 
terpret the  long  perspective  and  not  have  to 
reckon  with  the  missionary.  He  and  his 
fellows  think,  in  the  main,  alike  through  the 
long  millenniums.  They  love,  they  toil,  and 
they  die  as  if  powerfully  impressed  with 
the  sense  of  absolute  devotion  to  the  orders 
of  the  same  great  Commander.  They  go 
out  as  if  they  never  cared  to  return.  Their 
whole  bent  is  centrifugal,  not  centripetal. 
They  claim  to  be  constructive,  yet  they 
leave  houses,  lands,  wives,  and  children — 
15 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

all;  forsaking  things  that  other  men  covet 
having  material  values,  and  strain  every 
nerve  and  challenge  every  hazard  to  get  to 
“the  uttermost  parts.”  Nothing  less  than 
the  outer  rim  will  satisfy  their  ceaseless 
hunger  for  the  last  nation,  the  loneliest 
habitation,  the  abandoned  man.  They  are  a 
desperate  set.  Their  fashion  for  marking 
off  the  stages  of  their  advance  is  novel. 
They  lie  down  and  with  their  last  breath 
call  out,  for  encouragement  to  their  fol- 
lowers, “Another  empire !”  At  first  glance 
they  seem  to  be  composing  a sort  of 
triumphal  procession  of  blunderers,  and 
their  forward  movement  has  to  the  un- 
initiated all  the  marks  of  an  aimless  quest. 
I find  no  mention  of  this  breed  of  men  in 
the  forty-six  parallel  “Lives”  and  the  four 
detached  “Lives”  of  Plutarch,  nor  does 
Carlyle  portray  him  for  us  in  his  “Heroes.” 
Emerson  has  on  his  bead-roll  philosopher, 
mystic,  skeptic,  poet,  soldier,  writer,  but  not 
16 


The  Coming  of  the  Man 


the  man  whom  history  is  coming  to  regard 
as  one  of  the  “representative  men”  in  race 
progress  since  the  Christ  came  to  earth. 
We  have  failed  to  discover  any  one  to  take 
his  place.  His  greatness  does  not  appear  to 
be  exhausted.  He  keeps  succeeding  him- 
self. He  defies  oblivion.  Rotation  may  be 
the  law  of  nature,  and  people  may  say  that 
they  explore  the  horizon  in  vain  for  the 
successor  of  a great  man,  for  his  class  is 
extinct,  as  Emerson  affirms ; but  the 
world  is  not  done  with  the  missionary.  To 
the  past  he  was  a necessity,  the  present  is 
an  epitome  of  his  idealism,  and  the  good 
future  is  inconceivable  with  him  as  a minus 
quantity.  The  philosophy  of  history  is  now 
coming  to  take  him  by  the  hand  for  a cor- 
dial greeting  on  the  level.  For  the  homi- 
letic classic  he  is  still  an  immortal  support- 
ing column.  Romanticism  in  the  pulpit 
welcomes  his  everlasting  freshness. 

The  infinite  variations  of  his  appearance 

2 17 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

make  him  an  unspeakable  benediction  to  un- 
numbered pulpits  and  pews.  One  of  them  is 
seen  swimming  through  the  angry  surf  off 
the  island  of  Malta ; he  is  an  expert  in 
prayer  and  in  the  swimmer’s  art.  His  ver- 
satility takes  the  breath  out  of  our  won- 
der. He  got  into  history  by  the  name  of 
Paul. 

Yonder  are  men  in  a boat  off  the  coast 
of  Fife.  They  mourn  the  gloomy  prospect: 
“The  snow  closes  the  road  along  the  shore, 
the  storm  bars  our  way  over  the  sea the 
leader  says,  “there  is  still  the  way  of 
Heaven  that  lies  open.”  It  is  Cuthbert 
speaking,  the  glorious  herald  of  Northum- 
bria. And  now,  after  long  centuries  have 
slipped  by,  it  is  a man  in  the  hot  streets  of 
Goa  ringing  a hand-bell  to  attract  the  dusky 
peoples  to  hear  his  strange  but  comforting 
message.  It  is  Xavier.  Again,  it  is  an- 
other swimmer  cast  on  the  coast  of  Mau- 
ritius, indeed  twice  wrecked  before  he  ar- 
18 


The  Coming  of  the  Man 

rives  in  India.  It  is  a Scotchman,  and  they 
call  him  Alexander  Duff.  Then  the  vision 
changes,  and  we  are  watching  a fugitive  in 
a jungle  of  India.  Mutiny  is  astir;  it  is 
midnight ; the  burden-bearers  have  de- 
serted ; tigers  prowl  about.  The  man  steps 
out  from  the  path,  lifts  his  hat,  in  the  time 
of  awful  peril,  and  prays  two  minutes  as 
he  had  never  prayed  before.  He  steps  back 
into  the  path  and  there  he  finds  the  bearers 
bent  to  their  loads.  It  is  William  Butler. 
And  there  in  Calcutta  goes  a tall  form, 
with  a white  cotton  umbrella  overhead.  He 
is  barefooted.  It  is  Taylor  calling  the 
Eurasians  to  Jesus.  Once  more:  the  blue 
sky  of  the  New  Hebrides  overarches  a 
placid  form  lying  in  a canoe ; his  breast  is 
covered  with  palms,  and  underneath  are 
five  spear-wounds.  The  boat  floats  out  into 
the  lagoon  and  is  welcomed  by  weeping  fol- 
lowers. It  is  the  body  of  John  Coleridge 
Patteson,  bishop,  and  like  Bishop  Coke  he 
19 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

is  lowered  for  burial  into  the  sea.  As  the 
pictures  of  this  man’s  wanderings  and 
apostolates  and  evangelisms  rise  before  us, 
the  tribute  to  Livingstone  comes  to  mind. 
One  night,  in  1887,  Henry  Morton  Stan- 
ley was  on  board  the  Peace,  on  the  broad 
bosom  of  the  Congo,  talking  of  Africa  and 
her  degraded  condition,  and  the  only  re- 
generation possible  for  her.  Stanley  said, 
“If  Dr.  Livingstone  were  alive  to-day  I 
would  take  all  the  honors,  all  the  praise, 
that  men  have  showered  upon  me ; I would 
put  them  at  his  feet  and  say,  Here  you  are, 
old  man;  they  are  all  yours.” 

It  begins  to  dawn  upon  us  that  the  mis- 
sionary interpretation  of  history  may  in  the 
long  run  hold  good.  If  so,  it  behooves  the 
Christian  Church  to  adopt  his  theory, 
breathe  his  spirit,  and  pray  God  for  a share 
of  his  power.  What  has  he  done?  Look 
a bit.  What  has  he  not  done  ? 


20 


II 

H is  Miracles 

In  this  light  he  makes  his  first  appear- 
ance, a worker  of  miracles.  If  we  had  had 
insight  we  might  have  surmised  the  truth ; 
for  the  Master,  one  day  before  He  left  him, 
said  that  he  would  do  greater  things  than 
He  Himself  had  done.  It  might  take  time, 
but  they  would  not  fail  of  performance. 
And  now,  behold ! Three  centuries  file  by 
in  slow  procession,  each  column  bannered 
with  the  insignia  of  a haughty  imperialism. 
A marvelous  change  takes  place ; for  in  the 
beginning  of  the  movement  Rome’s  eagle 
swoops  down  upon  conquered  peoples  with 
all  her  old-time  ferocity.  In  due  time  the 
far-famed  title  “S.  P.  Q.  R.”  “Senate  and 
Roman  People,”  gives  way  to  the  “I.  H. 

21 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

S.”  the  mystic  letters  leading  in  the  spell- 
ing of  the  name  of  the  Nazarene  whose 
triumph  in  the  most  distant  lands  was  des- 
tined to  make  the  victories  of  the  Caesars 
appear  but  the  gains  of  a provincial  cap- 
tain. The  missionary  has  substituted  his 
own  for  the  Roman’s  ancient  standard. 
None  but  the  most  wealthy  and  active  im- 
agination can  re-create  this  most  tremen- 
dous conversion  of  all  time.  Renan,  in- 
dulging in  extravagant  appreciation  of 
Greece,  has  this : “I  will  even  add  that,  in 
my  opinion,  the  greatest  miracle  on  record 
is  Greece  itself and  another  writer,  more 
eloquent  than  sober,  has  said,  “Except  the 
blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  in 
this  world  which  is  not  Greek  in  its  ori- 
gins.” Surely  a scholar’s  strabismus.  For 
while  Greece  was  easily  the  master  of  the 
field  of  culture,  and  forever  glorious,  Rome 
surpassed  her  in  the  field  of  practical  poli- 
tics ; and  yet  the  latter,  long  time  illustrious 
22 


His  Miracles 


in  imperial  rule,  found  her  master  in  the 
humble  evangelist.  The  same  missionary 
who  left  his  message  upon  the  hill  with  the 
Athenian  philosophers  lifted  the  scepter  of 
the  Nazarene  over  the  Capitoline  Hill.  So 
Professor  Edward  A.  Freeman  is  right  in 
declaring,  “The  miracle  of  miracles,  greater 
than  dried-up  seas  and  cloven  rocks,  greater 
than  the  dead  rising  again  to  life,  was  when 
Augustus  on  his  throne,  pontiff  of  the  gods 
of  Rome,  himself  a god  to  the  subjects  of 
Rome,  bent  himself  to  become  the  wor- 
shiper of  a crucified  provincial  of  his  em- 
pire.” Not  even  the  devotion  of  the  able 
reactionary  Julian  could  restore  the  pagan 
faith  which  this  itinerant  had  so  uprooted. 
The  missionary  smiled  at  the  helpless  dis- 
gust of  the  emperor  when  he  discovered 
that,  at  one  of  the  greatest  shrines  in  Asia, 
the  hecatomb  which  should  have  been  of- 
fered had  shrunk  to  a paltry  goose.  The 
itinerant  knew  as  only  he  could  know 
23 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

why  the  statue  of  Victory,  Rome’s  chief 
patron  in  her  last  days,  was  voted 
out  and  down  by  the  rising  Christian  ma- 
jority in  the  Senate.  The  transformation 
of  pagan  into  Christian  Rome  took  place 
over  his  dead  and  often  defiled  body,  but 
it  took  place. 

The  swift  spread  of  early  Christianity 
was  an  expression  of  its  conviction  that 
the  world  was  to  be  the  field  of  its  benefi- 
cent imperialism.  Its  dominion  bordered 
no  neighbor’s  realm.  It  got  its  first  mis- 
sionary center  in  Antioch,  and  then  along 
the  great  Roman  highways  the  messengers 
marched  on  and  on.  Peter  entered  Baby- 
lon ; Mark  gained  Alexandria,  an  even 
more  important  missionary  arsenal  than  the 
city  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  Within 
less  than  a century  a network  of  Christian 
Churches  covered  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
activity  of  the  early  Church  has  had  no 
rival  in  all  the  centuries  until  one  reaches 
24 


His  Miracles 


the  twentieth  century.  And  this  is  the  more 
striking  when  we  remember  that  the  first 
century  leaped  forth,  as  it  were,  from  a 
state  of  inertia  preceding  Pentecost,  while 
we  now  move  on  borne  by  the  mighty  mo- 
mentum of  the  past.  Origen,  writing  later 
on,  speaks  of  the  city  Churches  sending  out 
their  own  missionaries  to  preach  in  all  the 
surrounding  villages.  On  the  Roman  roads 
built  for  military  expeditions,  down  the 
current  of  strange  rivers,  into  forest  re- 
cesses, into  the  thick  of  city  life  where 
the  convention  of  culture  and  the  cruelties 
of  paganism  offered  bitter  welcome  they 
went  forward  to  their  destiny,  evermore 
dreamers  who  made  the  dream  come  true. 
Their  lot  was  not  an  easy  one.  They  were 
accused  of  atrocious  crimes ; lampooned ; 
cursed ; charged  with  treason ; outlawed  by 
the  judges ; and  sent  to  the  stake,  when  a 
single  word  of  acknowledgment  of  the 
divinity  of  the  emperor  would  have  ensured 
25 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

their  liberty.  Juvenal  may  have  been  an 
eye-witness  of  the  carnival  in  Nero’s  gar- 
dens when  he  tells  how 

“At  the  stake  they  shine, 

Who  stand  with  throat  transfixed,  and  smoke 
and  bum." 

Their  veins  might  supply  rivers  with  bloody 
tides ; their  only  honor  be  the  accusation  of 
shameful  deeds ; their  homes  be  dens ; their 
faith  in  Jesus  be  called  “atheism,”  and  the 
lion’s  maw  their  goal ; but  even  so  they  went 
smilingly  forward — to  victory. 

Tender  girls  joined  stalwart  men  in  the 
march  to  the  grave.  In  one  of  the  perse- 
cutions through  which  the  early  Church 
rose  to  more  vigorous  life  a number  of 
martyrs  suffered  in  Carthage,  among  whom 
were  two  young  women,  Perpetua  and 
Felicitas.  All  the  prisoners  were  con- 
demned to  fight  with  the  wild  beasts  on  the 
birthday  of  the  Caesar.  One  of  the  mar- 
tyrs, Saturus,  was  speedily  released  from 
26 


His  Miracles 


life  by  the  bite  of  a leopard.  Perpetua  and 
Felicitas  were  put  into  a net  and  exposed 
to  a wild  cow.  On  her  hair  and  dress  be- 
coming disarranged,  Perpetua  quietly  reor- 
dered them,  modest  to  the  last.  Being 
about  to  receive  the  death-blow,  Perpetua 
called  to  the  soldier,  Pudens,  “Be  strong, 
and  think  of  my  faith,  and  let  not  all  this 
make  thee  waver,  but  strengthen  thee.” 
They  greeted  one  another  with  the  kiss  of 
peace,  and  were  slain  with  daggers.  When 
the  gladiator  came  near  who  was  to  kill 
Perpetua,  his  hand  trembled.  She  took  his 
hand,  guided  it  to  her  throat,  and  died  as 
calmly  as  if  falling  asleep.  It  needed  no 
prophet  to  tell  the  future  of  such  assurance, 
for  the  endurance  of  the  Christians  wore 
out  the  hate  of  the  heathens.  No  efforts  at 
annihilation  could  prevail  when  love  had 
armed  the  sufferer  for  the  conflict.  The 
executioner  might  behead  the  Bishop  Six- 
tus in  the  Catacombs,  and  scatter  his  blood 

27 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

on  the  spot  where  he  had  just  celebrated 
the  Lord’s  Supper,  and  four  days  later 
roast  his  deacon  Laurentius  in  an  iron 
chair — the  victory  of  the  truth  was  sure  to 
fall  to  those  who  loved  it  sincerely,  and  the 
crowning  of  martyrdom  followed  hard 
upon  the  crowning  of  Csesarism. 

From  Rome  to  Madagascar  and  Poly- 
nesia is  a long  leap,  but  the  same  miracle- 
worker  is  present  to  astonish  us  with  his 
power.  What  if  Froude  writes  despair- 
ingly of  the  work  in  Zealand?  Charles 
Darwin  declared  that  “the  lesson  of  the 
missionary  is  the  enchanter’s  wand.”  Lord 
Lawrence,  viceroy  of  India,  said,  “I  be- 
lieve, notwithstanding  all  that  the  English 
people  have  done  to  benefit  India,  the  mis- 
sionaries have  done  more  than  all  other 
agencies  combined.”  What  if  Dr.  Oscar 
Lenz  sneers  in  the  London  Times  that  mis- 
sions in  Africa  are  a failure?  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell  votes  with  mighty  conviction 
28 


His  Miracles 


that  they  are  not,  and  Count  Limburg- 
Hirum  returns  to  Europe  amazed  at  having 
been  “welcomed  in  the  land  of  cannibals  by 
children  singing  hymns,”  and  the  father  of 
modern  geography,  Ritter,  calls  the  work 
of  the  missionary  a “miracle”  indeed.  In- 
1819  the  Church  Missionary  Society  sent 
to  Sierra  Leone  a poor  German  laborer, 
William  B.  Johnson,  to  a refuse  population 
in  which  there  were  twenty-seven  tribes, 
and  as  many  dialects,  and  war  was  perpet- 
ual. In  seven  years  Johnson  died,  but  he 
lived  long  enough  to  see  the  country  trans- 
formed; every  trade  represented,  even  the 
professions,  a family  altar  in  every  home, 
thousands  of  children  at  school,  a church 
— builded  by  natives — holding  two  thou- 
sand hearers.  To  work  this  miracle  these 
men  have  not  canted,  they  have  not  cringed, 
they  have  not  despaired ; they  have  not 
halted  before  a hard  job,  nor  made  courage 
wait  on  caution,  nor  hesitated  to  pay  for 

29 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

success  at  the  expense  of  their  own  lives, 
preferring  death  to  failure.  They  earn  the 
encomium  of  the  Lord’s  fools  rather  than 
that  of  worldly  wise  men.  The  sheen  of 
dress  parade  is  always  more  offensive  than 
the  dust  of  the  battle.  They  have  not  al- 
ways had  the  pleasure  of  choosing  the  alter- 
native of  the  Spartan  mother,  “either  with 
your  shield  or  on  it,”  for  oftentimes  it  has 
been  neither,  and  Patteson  is  dropped  into 
the  sea,  Williams  of  Erromanga  is  eaten 
by  cannibals,  and  Hannington  is  decapi- 
tated, and  his  head  likely  set  on  a pole  to 
adorn  the  rude  entrance  to  the  hut  of  some 
chieftain  in  Equatorial  Africa.  Living- 
stone’s bones,  it  is  true,  get  interment  in 
Westminster,  but  his  heart  is  now  mingled 
with  the  dust  of  the  shore  of  Lake  Bang- 
weolo,  and  so  he  holds  two  continents  in 
holy  bonds  for  the  redemption  of  both. 

“The  old,  old  story”  has  to  do,  not  only 
with  the  love  of  Jesus,  but  with  the  de- 
30 


His  Miracles 


votion  of  His  disciples  in  all  ages,  and  the 
latest  records  of  heroism  in  China  are  as 
brilliant  as  any  in  the  days  of  Nero.  Ch’en, 
the  gatekeeper  of  the  compound  in  Pekin, 
welcomed  the  birth  of  a baby  girl,  and 
named  her  Mary  (pronouncing  it  Ma-li), 
after  the  mother  of  our  Lord.  He  became 
a licensed  preacher.  The  Boxers  came.  He 
was  urged  to  flee  to  the  hills.  “No,”  said 
Ch’en,  “I  will  not  leave  until  all  the  mem- 
bers of  my  flock  are  first  hid  away.”  The 
Boxer  chief  with  his  rabble,  caught  him, 
with  his  wife,  son,  and  little  “Apple,”  as 
his  beautiful  thirteen-year-old  daughter 
was  called,  demanded  all  his  money,  and 
then  whatever  else  he  had.  Ch’en  gave  up 
all,  and  turning  to  the  crowd  of  ruffians 
said,  “Now  I am  through ; you  may  do  with 
me  as  you  like.”  The  mob  killed  and  be- 
headed the  father;  and  then  the  mother, 
the  brother,  and  the  girl  were  hacked  to 
pieces.  Months  later,  when  the  third  son 
31 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

had  gathered  the  mangled  bits  and  given 
them  a decent  burial,  he  was  asked  by  the 
officials,  now  anxious  to  curry  favor  with 
the  victors,  what  indemnity  he  wanted ; he 
said  he  wanted  no  indemnity.  One  request 
he  made : “I  should  like  to  go  to  that 
church  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  peo- 
ple who  murdered  my  parents.”  They 
gave  him  permission  to  go.  And  he  joins 
the  host  of  world-saviors  who,  in  the  olden 
time,  put  up  Christ  in  the  place  of  Caesar. 
Love’s  miracle  is  to  transform  the  earth. 
The  Master  has  said  it ; 

“Verily,  verily,  I say  unto  you,  He  that 
helieveth  on  Me,  the  works  that  I do  shall 
he  do  also;  and  greater  works  than  these 
shall  he  do” 


32 


Ill 


New  Peoples 

The  missionary  has  always  had  his  eye 
on  the  nations  of  the  future.  He  has  never 
failed  to  divine  the  regnant  qualities  that 
lie  latent  in  certain  races.  He  must  needs 
work  for  the  distant  goal  of  the  Kingdom 
through  those  peoples,  who,  by  reason  of 
their  rapid  growth,  their  instinct  for  ex- 
pansion, their  industrial  supremacy,  and 
their  masterful  ability  in  government,  and 
the  long  call  of  God,  are  to  control  the  next 
half  hundred  and  the  next  half  thousand 
years.  He  is  after  the  masters  of  men,  to 
bring  them  to  the  Master  of  all.  When 
he  takes  his  stand  at  the  base-line  of  what 
Merivale  calls  the  greatest  event  of  secu- 
lar history,  the  fall  of  Rome,  he  rushes  off 
3 33 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

to  seed  down  the  new  peoples  with  the 
faith  that  is  to  conquer  the  world  in  the 
future.  They  are  worthy  of  being  called 
the  founders  of  the  new  nations  which 
arose  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  centuries  in 
which  Rome  was  tumbling  to  her  ruin. 
The  barbarian  conquerors  were  not  able 
to  secure  to  civilization  what  they  had 
wrested  from  the  imperial  city.  The  Goths 
took  Rome  by  storm ; the  missionary  cap- 
tured the  peoples  of  Western  Europe  by 
love,  and  ushered  in  a more  enduring  con- 
quest. The  Teutonic  invaders,  when  at  last 
they  overflowed  Italy,  were  already  tamed 
and  brought  under  law ; their  idolatrous 
heathenism  had  become  a thing  of  the  past. 
For  three  hundred  years  the  missionary 
was  performing  a double  task ; he  was  both 
mounting  the  throne  of  the  Caesars,  and 
mingling  with  the  half-clad  men  on  the 
frontiers  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube. 

Now  the  missionary  was  a hostage,  like 

34 


New  Peoples 


Ulfilas,  who  became  the  bishop  of  the 
Western  Goths,  dying  in  388  at  Constanti- 
nople ; now  a captive,  like  St.  Patrick.  The 
latter  was  taken  captive  at  the  age  of  six- 
teen by  the  Irish.  After  seven  years  he  es- 
caped ; but  in  432  he  returned  to  Ireland  to 
begin  his  wonderful  labors,  lasting  thirty 
years.  His  monastic  establishments  be- 
came outposts  of  civilization.  Ireland  soon 
exhibited  fervent  ecclesiastical  activity,  and 
got  the  name  of  the  Isle  of  Saints. 

There  were  hermits,  like  St.  Severinus, 
of  noble  origin  from  the  East,  who  took 
his  journey  to  the  Roman  province  of  Nori- 
cum,  and  near  Vienna  ministered  to  the 
warriors  of  the  invading  tribes  for  thirty 
years.  The  earliest  patron  saint  of  France 
was  Martin  of  Tours.  He  was  a soldier  by 
profession,  became  a follower  of  Jesus, 
won  his  mother  to  his  Master,  and  laid  the 
foundation  of  a beautiful  fame  by  his  long 
labors  in  Genoa  and  Tours.  To  the  north- 
35 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

west  is  seen  St.  Columba,  who  founded  the 
settlement  at  Iona,  to  whose  sacred  ruins, 
long  centuries  afterwards,  Dr.  Sam.  John- 
son thought  it  not  belittling  to  make  a pil- 
grimage. Columba  was  a civilizer  as  well 
as  a preacher.  In  the  opening  of  the  fifth 
century,  when  the  Emperor  Honorius, 
weakling  and  craven  that  he  was,  fell  down 
helpless  before  Alaric,  even  then  a monk 
by  name  of  Honorius  redeemed  the  name 
from  dishonor  by  his  devotion  to  the  cause 
of  right,  and  sent  from  his  home  in  Lerins 
on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
numerous  laborers  to  the  south  and  west  of 
Gaul.  As  we  turn  our  eyes  to  Germany  we 
note  the  contributions  made  by  the  teacher 
Columban,  and  his  pupil  Gallus,  in  the 
Vosges  hills  and  around  Lake  Constance. 

The  sixth  century  bore  witness  to  the 
power  of  fresh  consecration  on  the  part  of 
the  Benedictines,  the  first  Catholic  order, 
not  only  in  art,  but  also  in  the  larger  his- 

36 


New  Peoples 


tory  of  civilization.  Monachism  up  to  the 
end  of  the  fifth  century  presents  a sorry 
record  of  idleness,  fanatic  absurdities,  and 
false  claims  of  superior  sanctity.  Benedict, 
while  not  able  wholly  to  clear  himself  of 
the  influences  of  his  age,  yet  became  the 
founder  of  a really  great  and  beneficent 
movement.  His  followers  were  the  bear- 
ers of  the  Gospel  into  the  wilds  of  the 
North  of  Europe,  and  made  the  hidden 
places  of  Britain,  Gaul,  Saxony,  and  Bel- 
gium resound  with  the  praises  of  God ; and, 
as  if  in  this  revival  of  evangelistic  zeal  they 
would  include  all  good  possible,  they  be- 
came the  builders,  the  agriculturists,  the 
teachers,  and  the  artists  of  mediaeval 
Europe. 

When  the  rough  Saxon  swept  back  the 
Briton  to  the  west  of  the  island,  a new  man 
appears,  and  they  call  him  Augustine,  and 
the  seventh  century  starts  out  with  a fresh 
guarantee  that  the  future  is  to  fall  in  with 
37 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

the  plans  of  this  breed  of  men  who  live  to 
bring  young  and  vigorous  peoples  to  their 
Master.  The  Saxon  added  permanence  to 
the  evangelism  of  the  emotional  Celt.  None 
have  left  more  inerasible  footprints  than 
those  of  the  good  monk  of  Exeter,  Boni- 
face, “the  apostle  of  Germany.”  On  the 
shores  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  and  in  the  for- 
ests of  Thuringia  this  man  is  paying  back 
the  debt  of  England  to  the  Continent,  and 
overpaying  it,  as  with  his  kinsmen  Wili- 
bald  and  Wunnibald,  and  their  sister  with 
her  thirty  companions,  he  gave  permanence 
to  the  earlier  settlements,  and  expanded  the 
narrow  confines  of  earlier  labors.  At  sev- 
enty-four he  hears  the  footfall  of  armed 
men  approaching  his  tent.  Pagan  inso- 
lence bears  down  the  saint  as  he  cries  to  his 
followers,  “Lift  not  a staff  against  them,” 
and  gains  a martyr’s  death.  In  the  ninth 
century  the  periphery  is  pushed  farther  to 
the  north,  when  Ansgar,  another  apostle, 
38 


New  Peoples 


brings  Norway  in  line  with  the  trend  of 
the  ages  and  the  mercy,  the  patience,  and 
the  love  of  God.  “The  far-off  divine  event” 
draws  a trifle  nearer  when  the  fiery  vikings 
of  Scandinavia  get  the  conviction  that  to 
them,  too,  is  committed  the  “faith  once  de- 
livered to  the  saints.” 

Ansgar  was  as  willing  to  die  the  death  of 
a martyr  as  Boniface,  and  it  is  told  how  one 
of  his  followers  often  discovered  him  in 
tears  because  he  was  not  regarded  as 
worthy  of  martyrdom,  which  he  supposed 
had  been  promised  him  by  his  Lord.  From 
Denmark  to  Norway  is  but  a step.  Thither 
the  Gospel  is  taken  in  the  ninth  century  by 
some  sea-faring  young  men,  and  by  1033, 
St.  Olaf,  the  Christian  king,  earns  the  title 
of  the  patron  saint  of  Norway.  The  con- 
version of  the  Northern  nations  saved  those 
countries  of  Europe  which  bordered  on  the 
seas  from  the  ravages  of  pirates. 

Far  to  the  northeast  flames  the  holy  torch 

39 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

in  the  hands  of  the  Greek  missionaries, 
Cyrillus  and  Methodius,  whose  gift  of  the 
Bible  in  the  vernacular  of  the  Slavonic 
tribes  tempered  the  harshness  of  the  mas- 
terful and  turbulent  folk  of  the  plains  of 
Poland  and  beyond.  However,  the  strength 
of  the  Church  lay  to  the  West. 

A dark  cloud  arose  in  the  East.  Arabia 
sent  forth  her  great  man  in  the  seventh 
century  to  check  the  extension  of  the  Gos- 
pel towards  the  sunrise.  The  power  of  the 
Moslem  carried  the  crescent  with  furious 
charge  over  the  north  of  Africa,  and  even 
into  Spain,  where  it  got  a foothold  which 
lasted  for  seven  hundred  years.  Its  expul- 
sion occurred  in  the  era  of  the  discovery  of 
America.  But  it  seemed  at  one  time  as  if, 
pressing  up  from  the  West  and  from  the 
East,  now  beating  at  the  gates  of  Paris  and 
then  at  those  of  Constantinople,  the  cause 
which  the  missionary  had  taken  so  to  heart 
was  to  suffer  extinguishment.  The  East 
40 


New  Peoples 


crowded  hard  upon  the  West.  The  mis- 
sionary got  no  great  fruit  of  his  labors  in 
the  Orient  for  many  a long  age.  A cen- 
tury of  persecutions,  far  back  in  the  fourth 
century,  nearly  annihilated  the  Christian 
Church  in  Persia,  and  the  violently  ag- 
gressive evangelism  of  Islam  swept  all  be- 
fore it  in  Egypt,  Syria,  Persia,  and  the 
African  provinces.  In  Asia  Minor  noth- 
ing but  the  brilliant  and  stout  defense  of 
Leo  the  Isaurian,  in  717,  saved  Constanti- 
nople from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  foe. 
For  seven  centuries  the  Mohammedan 
hammered  at  the  door  which  the  Roman 
emperors  in  their  wisdom  had  put  up 
against  the  invaders  of  the  East,  going  so 
far  as  to  remove  the  capital  of  the  world 
from  the  Tiber  to  the  Golden  Horn.  But 
at  last  it  fell,  and  when,  in  1453,  the  Turk 
broke  through  all  defenses,  and  changed 
St.  Sophia  from  a Christian  Church  to  a 
Mohammedan  mosque,  Christian  Europe 
41 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

looked  westward  for  its  destiny.  True,  the 
Crusades  had  left  their  half-sad,  half-heroic 
story  of  an  effort  to  beat  back  the  tide  of 
invasion  in  the  two  centuries  just  before 
Europe  woke  up  from  her  sleep  which  men 
call  the  Dark  Ages ; but  her  triumph  in  that 
direction  was  not  essential,  and  she  found 
her  highway  to  the  Orient  by  way  of  the 
Atlantic,  discovering  America  as  she  went 
thither.  Dates  often  have  little  significance, 
but  it  must  be  evident  to  the  interpreter  of 
the  ongoings  of  history  that  the  year  1453 
is  out  of  the  ordinary ; for  at  the  very  time 
the  Turks  captured  Constantinople,  Eng- 
land ceased  her  attempts  to  conquer  France, 
ended  the  Hundred  Years’  War,  and  found 
a fairer  destiny  awaiting  her  in  the  con- 
quest of  the  Spanish  Armada  and  the  set- 
tlement of  North  America. 

In  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  the  mis- 
sionary spirit  was  by  no  means  inactive, 
nor  were  there  lacking  men  who,  even  in 
42 


New  Peoples 


the  days  of  the  military  expeditions  against 
the  Saracen,  saw  the  better  way  of  spread- 
ing the  truth.  The  illustrious  Raymond 
Lull  was  a second  St.  Augustine  in  his 
wayward  youth,  and  also  in  his  later  hum- 
ble spirit  and  tireless  zeal  for  the  Master 
of  scholars  as  well  as  of  saints.  He  put  his 
vast  learning  at  the  feet  of  Christ,  and  ap- 
pealed to  warrior  popes  for  backing  to 
carry,  not  a weaponed,  but  a reasonable 
Gospel  to  the  adherents  of  Mohammed  in 
Northern  Africa,  and  there  in  his  old  age 
died  a martyr’s  death. 

The  opening  of  the  Western  world  of- 
fered an  opportunity  which  Roman  Cathol- 
icism seized  for  her  expansion.  In  this  she 
had  at  first  the  advantage  of  Protestantism. 
She  was  better  organized.  She  had  the 
power  that  comes  from  centralization.  She, 
at  first,  controlled  the  seas.  Contemporary 
with  the  birth  of  Lutheranism  she  produced 
the  most  marvelous  order  of  its  kind  in 
43 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

human  history,  the  Society  of  Jesus.  The 
Jesuits  had  no  limit  set  to  their  authority 
touching  things  temporal  and  spiritual,  and 
while  Protestantism  fell  into  disputes  in  the 
seventeenth  century  in  the  effort  to  adjust 
itself  to  the  new  forms  of  life,  political  as 
well  as  religious,  and  to  justify  itself  be- 
fore human  thought,  the  Jesuit  flung  him- 
self to  the  farthest  shores.  He  outran  even 
the  most  ambitious  commerce  in  his  pur- 
pose to  reach  Asia,  and  even  Central  Africa 
and  South  America.  The  new  openings  in- 
vited rare  men ; for  when  Xavier  and  Las 
Casas,  the  former  in  the  East  and  the  latter 
in  the  West,  set  the  example  of  apostolic 
surrender  to  a noble  idealism,  the  world 
was  the  richer  for  their  living  in  it.  The 
College  of  the  Propaganda,  1627,  was  ad- 
mirably fitted  to  train  children  of  the  Cath- 
olic faith  for  missionaries  to  all  nations. 
The  idea  of  this  institution  had  been  real- 
ized by  Ignatius  Loyola  in  1552.  The  work 
44 


New  Peoples 


of  the  Jesuits  in  India,  where  Xavier  had 
baptized  probably  one  hundred  thousand 
pariahs  and  outcasts,  was  destined  to  give 
way  to  Mohammedanism ; and  even  though 
his  zeal  laid  the  foundation  for  a splendid 
ecclesiastical  establishment  in  Japan, 
Buddha  proved  for  a time  too  mighty  for 
the  followers  of  the  Christ,  and  by  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  century  every  vestige 
of  Christianity  went  down  before  the  wrath 
of  the  native  pagans.  The  day  of  Japan 
was  not  yet  come.  In  China  the  charac- 
teristic disdain  for  everything  foreign  re- 
fused audience  to  the  missionary  until  the 
Jesuit  Ricci,  contemporary  of  Shakespeare, 
and  a famous  astronomer,  attained  high 
distinction  and  paved  the  way  for  the  Gos- 
pel. In  the  West  Indies  the  Jesuits  did 
some  of  their  best  work,  and  with  genuine 
courage  pressed  into  the  primitive  forests, 
and  laid  the  foundation  for  the  Republic 
of  Paraguay,  prohibiting  Spaniards  from 
45 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

getting  control,  and  ruling  in  a patriarchal 
style. 

Luther  had  said,  as  his  eye  took  in  the 
rise  of  factions  and  the  spread  of  strife  in 
Western  Europe,  “In  a hundred  years  it 
will  all  be  over!”  For  a while  a chill  fell 
upon  the  centrifugal  ferment  of  Protestant- 
ism. Yet  soon  the  Elijah  mantle  dropped 
upon  the  shoulders  of  the  colonizers  of  the 
Western  world. 

It  was  Raleigh  who  made  the  first  sub- 
scription for  foreign  missions,  and  the 
diarist  of  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  tells  the 
faith  of  the  English  mariner : “The  sow- 
ing of  Christianity  must  be  the  chief  intent 
of  such  as  shall  make  any  attempt  at  for- 
eign discovery,  or  else  whatever  is  builded 
upon  other  foundation  shall  never  obtain 
happy  success  or  continuance.”  Now  it  is 
broad  day  in  the  expansion  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race.  The  seventeenth  century 
walks  into  view  leading  John  Eliot  by  the 
46 


New  Peoples 


hand.  And  the  very  year,  1649,  in  which 
the  faithless  Charles  Stuart  lost  his  head, 
saw  the  organization  of  the  first  Protestant 
Missionary  Society  in  England.  Old 
Europe  is  amazingly  interested  in  the  New 
World  and  in  Asia,  in  many  ways  with 
abominable  selfishness ; but  at  times,  from 
the  anvil  on  which  she  is  pounding  out  and 
shaping  destiny,  there  falls  a bright  spark 
of  idealism  that  lives  on  until  it  becomes  a 
star  of  the  first  magnitude.  In  1705,  Bar- 
tholomew Ziegenbald  departs  for  India,  and 
August  7,  1707,  he  dedicates  the  first 

Protestant  Church  in  Asia.  It  was  the 
sense  of  the  needs  of  the  Colonial  Church 
in  Maryland  that  led  Dr.  Bray  from  Lon- 
don as  “ecclesiastical  commissary,”  and  he 
it  was  who  inspired  the  organization,  in 
1701,  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel.  The  modern  movement  is  on, 
and  there  is  no  stopping  it. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  theology  had 

47 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

lacked  warmth,  and  polemical  passion 
usurped  the  place  of  spirituality.  However, 
towards  the  close  of  the  Thirty  Years’  War 
the  lifeless  skeleton  of  dead  orthodoxy  be- 
gan to  feel  the  thrill  of  life.  Spener  was 
the  German  Wesley.  Francke,  his  pupil, 
founded  the  orphan  asylum  at  Halle  and 
made  the  university  a radiating  center  of 
light.  At  Tubingen,  J.  A.  Bengel  lifted 
pietism  to  its  noblest  height.  Closely  al- 
lied to  the  Pietists  were  the  Moravians, 
with  Count  Zinzendorf  as  their  bishop.  His 
life  was  romantic.  He  lived  from  1700  to 
1760.  His  followers  vied  with  the  Jesuits 
in  missionary  zeal. 

That  ever-glorious  eighteenth  century, 
though  called  by  Carlyle  “an  unheroic  age,” 
gets  its  name  upon  God’s  honor  roll,  for 
the  year  1732  is  no  more  great  because  it 
is  the  birth  year  of  Washington  than 
because  it  marked  the  matchless  faith 
and  fine  fervor  of  the  Moravians  at 
48 


New  Peoples 


Herrnhut  to  get  to  “the  uttermost  parts, ' 
for  in  that  year,  as  if,  too,  in  answer 
to  the  “Lettres  Philosophique”  of  Voltaire 
just  issued,  two  plain  men,  the  one  a pot- 
ter and  the  other  a carpenter,  Leonard 
Dober  and  David  Nitschman,  left  Herrnhut 
at  three  o’clock  one  morning  carrying  hand 
bundles,  and  with  less  than  four  dollars  in 
pocket,  to  begin  a journey  of  six  hundred 
miles  afoot,  with  four  thousand  miles  far- 
ther to  follow.  In  the  years  immediately 
after  this  one,  their  missionary  passion  at- 
tained the  most  prolific  proportions  known 
in  history.  And  with  the  coming  of  the 
matchless  nineteenth  century  the  Teutonic 
peoples,  who  had  thus  far  been  shaping  his- 
tory for  Europe  and  America,  now  outdo 
themselves  in  their  set  determination  to  fix 
the  standard  for  the  rest  of  the  world  and 
multiply  missionary  societies  through  the 
century  at  the  rate  of  more  than  one  for 
every  two  years. 


4 


49 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

We  go  too  fast.  What  Christian  David 
was  to  the  Moravians,  what  Antoine  Court 
was  to  the  Reformers  at  Lausanne,  what 
Jonathan  Edwards  was  to  New  England, 
and  Howell  Harris  to  Wales,  John  Wesley 
was  to  England,  and,  more,  to  the  world. 
In  this  way  the  able  historian  of  England 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  Lecky,  speaks  of 
him : “Although  the  career  of  the  elder 
Pitt,  and  the  splendid  victories  by  land  and 
sea  that  were  won  during  his  ministry, 
form  unquestionably  the  most  dazzling  epi- 
sodes in  the  reign  of  George  II,  they  must 
yield,  I think,  in  real  importance  to  that 
religious  revolution  which  shortly  before 
had  been  begun  in  England  by  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield.”  The 
leader  of  the  new  spiritual  impulse  of  the 
century  is  a divinely  gifted  missionary.  In 
the  same  decade  that  witnessed  the  depar- 
ture of  the  two  humble  men  from  Herrnhut, 
John  Wesley  goes  as  a missionary  to 
50 


New  Peoples 

Georgia.  Then  he  is  back  in  England. 
Then  occurs  the  scene  in  Aldersgate  Street, 
of  which  the  same  philosophic  writer  just 
quoted  says,  “It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  scene  which  took  place  at 
that  humble  meeting  in  Aldersgate  Street 
forms  an  epoch  in  English  history.”  And, 
also,  in  future  history,  the  world  around. 
From  that  time  the  people  he  gathered 
about  him  took  on  the  color  and  the  power 
of  his  enthusiasm,  so  that  Justin  McCarthy 
is  correct  when  he  says,  “All  the  early 
Methodists  were  missionaries.”  The  bit- 
terer the  opposition,  the  more  passionate 
grew  their  zeal.  This  man  who  was  by 
common  consent  cut  out  for  a statesman 
“by  his  extraordinary  powers  of  organiza- 
tion and  reasoning,”  took  the  leadership  of 
the  modern  missionary  movement ; for 
there  has  beep  nothing  like  it  in  the  two  mil- 
lenniums since  Calvary.  Hear  Lecky  once 
more:  “Methodism  in  America  grew  and 
51 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

flourished  beyond  all  its  rivals,  and  it  is 
now  the  largest  religious  body  in  that  great 
country,  which  is  destined  to  be  the  most 
important  center  of  the  English  race.”  Wal- 
ter Scott  said  of  a sermon  he  heard 
preached  by  Wesley  that  it  was  too  collo- 
quial for  the  Scotch  taste.  It  may  be.  But 
his  word  has  become  the  vernacular  of  the 
world,  and  that  is  better  still.  All  that  is 
wanted  is,  that  Oxford  scholarship  shall  be 
tipped  with  “tongues  of  fire.”  Wesley’s 
frame  of  iron,  his  unflagging  spirits,  and 
his  lofty  consecration  gave  to  his  wide 
learning,  his  extraordinary  knowledge  of 
men,  and  his  unparalleled  administrative 
powers  their  largest  influence  and  fruitage. 
From  his  work  may  be  dated  the  new  im- 
pulse which  has  gone  out  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth  on  the  part  of  the  evangelical  por- 
tion of  the  English  and  American  Churches. 

The  missionary  is  the  man  who  is  teach- 
ing the  world  that  John  Fiske  was  right  in 
52 


New  Peoples 


saying  that  there  is  to  be  not  less,  but  more, 
of  religion  in  the  future.  “The  world  needs 
to  know,”  says  Dr.  E.  E.  Hale,  “when  it 
speaks  of  physical  discovery  and  material 
progress,  that  discovery  itself  is  never  phys- 
ical, and  that  progress  is  itself  always  spir- 
itual.” In  his  emphasis  upon  this  proposi- 
tion the  man  with  the  Book  under  his  arm, 
and  in  the  vernacular  of  the  new  people  he 
faces,  surveys  a future  of  whose  riches  in 
all  the  agents  of  progress — the  newspaper, 
the  railroad,  steamships,  telegraph,  schools, 
factories,  art  halls,  churches,  and  even  its 
militarism  — he  is  the  comprehensive 
augury,  exposition,  regeneration,  and 
crown.  For  the  multiplied  agencies  of  our 
advance  are  getting  results  like  those  to 
which  Sir  James  Mackintosh  referred  when, 
in  conversing  with  Henry  Martyn,  he  re- 
marked that  there  was  a striking  analogy 
between  the  situation  of  the  English  peo- 
ples in  the  Orient  and  that  of  Alexander 
53 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

when  he  made  the  East  Greek  in  order  to 
make  way  for  the  religion  of  the  Lord 
Jesus.  In  the  same  fashion  we  see  the  nine- 
teenth century  striving  after  control  of 
peoples  in  Asia  and  Africa  who  are  to  have 
a hand  in  the  affairs  of  the  future.  They 
must  not  become  injurious  users  of  the  easy 
privileges  of  modern  intercourse  among 
nations,  old  and  new,  and  they  must  be 
won  to  Christ  if  those  nations  already 
Christian  are  to  be  safe  from  evil  contact 
with  twentieth  century  forms  of  heathen- 
isms. So  William  Carey  reaches  India  in 
1793.  Dr.  Morrison  gets  to  Canton,  China, 
in  1807.  Henry  Martyn  is  in  Persia  in 
1811;  Adoniram  Judson  in  Burma,  1812; 
Dr.  Duff  in  Calcutta,  1829,  (the  subsidence 
of  the  Sepoy  mutiny  finds  William  Butler 
at  Delhi)  ; and  the  stream  has  flowed  full 
since  then. 

The  world  has  been  eyeing  that  wonder- 
child  among  the  nations,  come  to  power 
54 


New  Peoples 


within  a half  century — Japan.  In  1859  the 
missionary  got  a footing  there,  and  won  a 
convert  after  five  years ; by  twelve  years 
he  had  ten.  Then  behold : in  twenty  years 
there  were  twenty-seven  missionary  so- 
cieties on  the  ground,  and  in  the  great  war 
just  closed,  Christian  chaplains,  officers, 
and  privates,  and  nurses  prayed  and  fought 
and  died  on  the  road  to  Harbin,  winning 
victories  for  progress  far  up  in  Manchuria. 
The  powder-cart  is  an  uncouth  chariot  for 
the  King’s  agent  to  charter  for  a short  pas- 
sage ; but  somehow  the  Cause  of  causes  gets 
on,  even  if  for  a while  the  only  music  is 
the  vicious  shriek  of  the  cracking  shrapnel. 
Neither  Russia  nor  Japan  can  ever  be 
closed  to  the  Gospel.  The  fact  to  be  ever- 
more remembered  is,  that  this  man  with  the 
Book  must  now  be  in  haste,  tremendous 
haste. 

Turn  to  this  man’s  record  in  Africa.  At 
the  close  of  the  last  century  but  one,  the 

55 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

Moravians,  renewed  their  grip  there;  in 
1812  the  Wesleyans  entered;  in  1832  Mel- 
ville B.  Cox  sails  to  Liberia,  not  to  return ; 
then  in  goes  Livingstone,  and  soon  Mac- 
kaye  at  his  heels,  to  be  followed  by  Han- 
nington,  the  last  two  dying — one  of  fever, 
the  other  of  spear-thrusts — but  leaving  in 
their  train  a vigorous  body  of  native  Chris- 
tians in  Uganda,  able  to  preserve  their  in- 
tegrity and  to  propagate  their  faith.  It 
was  my  good  fortune  to  hear  Mr.  Stanley, 
just  four  days  back  from  his  Emin  Pasha 
expedition,  address  the  Church  Missionary 
Society  in  Salisbury  Square  upon  the  work 
of  Mackaye.  He  declared  it  his  profound 
conviction  that,  if  every  vestige  of  Chris- 
tianity were  erased  from  the  earth  save  the 
Church  in  Uganda,  there  was  enough  life 
there,  enough  intelligent  spirituality, 
enough  power,  to  start  the  Gospel  around 
the  world  again.  Truly  it  was  a wonder- 
ful people  for  whom  the  Scotch  honor  stu- 
56 


New  Peoples 


dent  and  the  crack  oarsman  of  Oxford  gave 
their  lives  just  in  time  to  get  Equatorial 
Africa  in  line  with  the  plans  of  God  for 
the  twentieth  century. 

This  file-leader  of  civilization  turns  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean  in  good  time  to  make 
things  ready  for  some  stupendous  hap- 
penings in  the  present  century  whose 
outcome  none  of  us  can  know.  Aus- 
tralia owes  its  wonderful  rise  in  civili- 
zation during  the  last  three-quarters  of  a 
century  largely  to  the  missionary.  Four 
generations  ago  there  was  not  a civilized 
man  on  the  Australian  Continent.  The  in- 
fluence which  this  vast  territory,  half  as 
large  as  the  United  States,  will  exert  upon 
Polynesia  and  the  Asiatic  nations  can  only 
be  great.  New  Zealand  is  called  upon  to 
line  up  with  the  forces  of  the  one  King- 
dom toward  which  all  others  are  gravitat- 
ing. Williams  of  Erromanga  is  the  first 
martyr.  James  Calvert  gets  the  hearts  of 
57 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

the  Fijis  and  lives  to  see  cannibalism  trans- 
formed to  a Christian  civilization.  In  1850, 
Captain  Gardiner  leads  the  Gospel  expedi- 
tion to  Patagonia,  and  is  the  first  to  land 
and  the  last  to  expire  on  that  inhospitable 
coast.  Most  precious  seed  is  this  “blood  of 
martyrs.”  At  Aneityum,  in  the  Samoan 
group,  is  this  legend  on  a memorial  tablet 
telling  of  Geddie : “When  he  landed  here, 
in  1848,  there  were  no  Christians,  and 
when  he  left  here,  in  1872,  there  were  no 
heathens.”  Surely  too  much  was  done  there 
for  more  not  to  be  done.  In  these  islands 
savagism,  infanticide,  lust,  cannibalism,  ran 
riot,  yet  in  less  than  fifty  years  nearly  thrice 
twenty  thousand  had  joined  the  Church, 
and  not  a cottage  lacked  its  Bible  and 
hymn-book.  Thirty  years  after  the  first 
missionary  put  foot  on  the  shore  at  Hawaii 
the  native  Church  had  organized  a “So- 
ciety for  the  Promotion  of  Foreign  Mis- 
sions,” the  very  men  who  had  offered 
58 


New  Peoples 


loathsome  sacrifices  now  giving  and  get- 
ting money  for  the  purpose.  So  when  Mr. 
M.  D.  Conway,  a graduate  of  Dickinson 
College,  but  later  a liberal  preacher  in  Lon- 
don, visited  Honolulu  he  was  disappointed, 
on  Sunday,  at  not  finding  the  natives 
“swimming  around  the  ship  in  Arcadian 
innocence,”  but,  instead,  the  city  quiet  and 
“paralyzed  by  piety.”  He  had  to  go  to 
Church  to  see  the  people. 

No  one  can  have  watched  the  swiftly 
moving  events  of  the  last  few  years  with- 
out a deepening  conviction  that  in  some 
way,  clear  or  clouded,  but  surely,  America 
is  to  be  the  influential  factor  in  the  com- 
mercial, the  political,  and  the  religious  fu- 
ture of  the  peoples  that  bask  or  busy  them- 
selves on  the  shores  of  the  mighty  Pacific. 
Let  it  be  recalled  that  we  began  our  na- 
tional career,  at  a time  when  European 
monarchs  were  skeptical  of  the  experiment 
of  a democratic  nation,  on  such  a scale  as 
59 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

lay  before  us.  The  world’s  leading  his- 
torian, Edward  Gibbon,  was  giving  his  vast 
talents  to  portraying  the  “Decline  and  Fall 
of  Rome.”  It  was  the  past  that  charmed 
him.  On  a memorable  night  in  June,  1787, 
he  closed  his  ever-great  history  on  the 
banks  of  Lake  Geneva.  It  was  at  the  very 
same  time  that  the  men  of  immortal  fame 
met  at  Philadelphia  to  fashion  a working 
frame  of  government  for  a new  people  who 
were  to  keep  step  with  God ; and  they  called 
it  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Never  in  all  history  has  the  itinerant 
kept  such  step  with  the  pioneer  as  in  the 
march  of  the  American  settler  towards  the 
setting  sun.  He  even  anticipated  him.  The 
story  of  the  entrance  of  Oregon  into  the 
Union  can  not  be  truly  told,  H.  H.  Ban- 
croft being  witness,  if  the  narrator  leaves 
out  the  work  of  the  Methodist,  Jason  Lee, 
the  first  on  the  ground,  and  the  Congrega- 
tionalism Dr.  Whitman,  whose  famous  ride 
60 


New  Peoples 


back  to  the  Eastern  settlements  is  part  of 
our  annals  of  heroism.  George  Herbert, 
orator  to  the  University  of  Cambridge, 
wrote : 

“ Religion  stands  on  tiptoe  in  our  land, 

Ready  to  pass  to  the  American  Strand.” 

These  lines  were  first  published  in  1633. 
The  vice-chancellor  objected  to  their  pub- 
lication, but,  on  consenting,  said,  “I  hope 
the  world  will  not  take  him  to  be  an  in- 
spired prophet.”  But  that  is  what  he  was. 
The  first  work  of  the  American  Churches 
in  the  colonization  of  the  Western  Conti- 
nent was  to  solve  the  home  missionary 
problem.  And  right  nobly  was  this  done. 
To  keep  in  touch  with  the  ever-shifting 
frontier,  and  adroitly,  bravely,  powerfully 
to  mold  the  raw  settlements  for  Christ,  has 
cost  the  various  home  missionary  societies 
$140,000,000  in  the  effort,  as  Dr.  J.  B. 
Clark  has  said,  “to  leaven  America.”  But 
religion  was  not  only  to  pass  to  the  Amer- 
61 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

ican  strand,  not  only  to  cross  the  American 
Continent,  but  to  go  far  beyond  with  the 
American  ideals  of  life  and  of  government. 
God  has  some  good  purpose  in  pushing  the 
bearer  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes  past  the 
Golden  Gate.  Fresh  witnesses  repeat  the 
story  of  earlier  ones.  Sober  fact  becomes 
the  voucher  for  prophetic  dream. 

Bishop  J.  M.  Thoburn  tells  of  a Scotch- 
man in  India  who,  scarcely  fifty  years  ago, 
published  in  his  paper  an  article  with  the 
title  “The  Pacific  Ocean  an  American 
Lake,”  in  which,  as  he  looked  to  the  ap- 
pearance of  Commodore  Perry  in  the  Jap- 
anese harbor,  he  declared  that  events  were 
taking  a shape  which  would  give  America 
a paramount  influence  in  the  Pacific  Ocean 
in  all  the  future.  The  thunder  of  Dewey’s 
guns  before  Manila,  and  the  unexampled 
influence  of  President  Roosevelt  in  bring- 
ing Russia  and  Japan  to  end  their  bloody 
strife,  have  so  enhanced  American  prestige 
62 


New  Peoples 


in  all  the  Orient  that  we  must  take  up 
whatever  burden  falls  to  us  to  carry  in 
righteousness.  It  looks  as  if  we  were  des- 
tined to  be  the  St.  Christopher,  “Christ- 
Bearer,”  around  the  shores  of  the  Western 
sea.  There  is  labor,  and  there  is  reward. 
President  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler  said  at 
the  Educational  Congress  of  the  Lewis  and 
Clark  Exposition,  “The  great  problem  with 
which  world-history  will  have  to  deal  in  the 
next  half-century  concerns  the  assimilation 
of  Eastern  Asia  to  the  other  world-half,” 
and  added,  “Our  nation  was  shaped  for 
the  work  of  evangelization.”  To  be  known 
as  the  world’s  peacemaker — what  an  honor ! 
to  take  the  Hand  of  the  Master  and  go 
around  the  world  quieting  distrust,  pro- 
moting peace,  and  becoming  expert  in 
bringing  in  the  Kingdom!  Yet  events 
were  moving  that  way  even  in  our  own 
strife  half  a hundred  years  ago. 

During  the  Civil  War  Colonel  Vincent 

63 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

Marmaduke  was  a bearer  of  dispatches 
from  Jefferson  Davis  to  Mr.  Mason,  who 
represented  the  Confederacy  in  England. 
While  in  London  he  was  advised,  one  even- 
ing, to  hear  John  Bright,  who  was  to  speak 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  afterward 
said  to  a friend,  who  now  tells  the  story, 
that  Mr.  Bright,  in  the  course  of  his  speech, 
which  related  to  European  affairs,  stopped 
for  a moment  and  then  remarked,  before 
resuming  his  argument:  “Mr.  Speaker,  if 
our  kinsfolk  on  the  other  side  of  the  At- 
lantic settle  their  Civil  War  satisfactorily, 
and  get  back  together  in  peace,  in  forty 
years  there  will  not  be  a gun  fired  in  the 
world  without  their  consent.”  Colonel 
Marmaduke  has  since  admitted  that  Mr. 
Bright’s  picture  of  the  possible  future  of 
this  nation  gave  him  some  uneasiness  of 
mind,  because  he  was  striving  to  promote 
permanent  disunion.  “I  am  glad,”  he  said, 
years  after  the  close  of  the  war,  “that  the 
64 


New  Peoples 


Almighty  has  preserved  us  for  purposes  of 
His  own,  which  will  some  day  be  unveiled 
before  the  world.” 

The  sum  of  it  all  is  in  the  words  of  the 
Master : 

“Ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto  Me,  . . . 

unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth.” 


5 


65 


IV 


Brotherhood 

The  preceding  phase  of  the  main  sub- 
ject had  to  do  with  the  flow  of  time  and  the 
rise  of  new  peoples.  The  present  one  treats 
of  humanity.  In  his  idea  of  manhood  the 
missionary  is  typical  of  the  new  day. 
Rather,  he  has  always  pointed  to  the  pres- 
ent hour,  and  has  been  steadily  leading 
up  to  it.  He  has  consistently  held  the  ad- 
vance of  the  movement  toward  a truer 
recognition  of  the  world-wide  fraternity 
among  men. 

The  missionary  knew  what  he  was  sent 
to  accomplish,  and  so  he  began  with  the 
only  hopeful  way  of  regenerating  society, 
and  laid  the  foundation  anew,  in  marriage 
and  in  the  family.  The  heathen  world  had 
66 


Brotherhood 


allowed  domestic  life  to  fall  into  decay. 
Marriage  centered  in  the  State,  with  its 
end  to  produce  citizens.  Christianity  made 
marriage  free.  Contempt  of  marriage  in 
favor  of  celibacy  did  not  attach  itself  to 
the  progress  of  the  Church  until  long  after- 
wards in  an  untimely  environment.  Of  the 
true  Christian  home,  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria finely  said,  “The  children  glory  in 
their  mother,  the  husband  in  his  wife,  and 
she  in  them,  and  all  in  God.”  This  was 
higher  than  heathenism.  In  the  eye  of  the 
early  missionary  the  little  children  had  for 
the  first  time  great  recognition  and  justice 
and  love.  The  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables 
of  Rome  gave  the  father  the  right  to  aban- 
don or  to  kill  them.  Christianity  made 
abandonment  murder,  for  children  were  a 
gift  from  God  for  which  the  parents  were 
responsible  to  Him. 

Not  less  did  the  proclamation  of  the  mis- 
sionary concern  the  slave.  He  went  up  and 

67 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

down  the  shores  of  the  great  inland  sea, 
crying  out  of  court  heathen  caste  with  the 
words:  “There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek, 
there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is 
neither  male  nor  female ; for  ye  are  all  one 
in  Christ  Jesus.”  The  accident  of  mastery 
or  slavery  did  not  appear  of  note.  The  only 
real  slavery  was  the  bondage  of  sin.  So 
Christianity  did  not  immediately  attempt 
changes  in  civil  society.  Yet  it  was  not 
long  ere  the  good  seed  sprang  up,  and  men 
began  to  manumit  their  slaves.  Things  were 
not  left  as  the  first  herald  found  them. 
Master  and  slave  were  members  of  the 
same  Church.  They  adored  one  God,  and 
mingled  their  songs  and  prayers  together. 
A slave  might  be  an  elder  in  the  same 
Church  of  which  his  master  was  only  a 
member.  When  the  spirit  of  freedom  be- 
gan to  fill  the  nostrils  of  men  through  the 
work  of  the  Church,  it  was  common  for 
masters  to  bring  their  slaves  to  the  altar, 
68 


Brotherhood 


and  before  the  congregation  declare  them 
free,  thus  casting  over  the  transaction  the 
sanction  of  the  Church.  In  this  undis- 
guised love  for  men  as  such,  Paul  espoused 
the  cause  of  Onesimus  the  slave,  and  wrote 
to  Philemon  his  master,  “Thou  shouldest 
receive  him,  not  now  as  a servant,  but 
above  a servant,  a brother  beloved.”  Then, 
too,  and  as  a fitting  accompaniment  to  the 
new  theory  and  practice,  labor  got  to  itself 
a high  estimate.  It  was  now  no  disgrace, 
but  an  honor.  The  Lord  was  a carpenter, 
Peter  a fisherman,  Paul  a tentmaker. 
While  the  sages  like  Plato  deemed  manual 
labor  unworthy  a freeman,  Paul  exhorted 
that  a man  should  “labor,  that  he  may  have 
to  give  to  him  that  needeth.”  Thus  the 
true  end  of  labor  was  pointed  out,  and  the 
high  ideal  of  toil  for  the  salvation  of  the 
other  man  was  published  to  the  world. 
Things  were  starting  on  the  upgrade.  Self- 
ishness and  stoic  egoism  were  ready  for 

69 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

banishment.  How  unlike  are  the  two 
views, — that  of  Plautus,  saying,  “A  man 
is  a wolf  to  a man  whom  he  does  not 
know and  the  golden  counsel  of  the  Mas- 
ter, “A  new  commandment  I give  unto  you, 
that  ye  love  one  another !” 

The  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  early 
missionaries  have  won  out  in  the  march  of 
the  ages,  and  nineteen  centuries  after  the 
apostle  spoke  his  good  word  for  Onesimus, 
I see  a man  on  the  bank  of  the  Nile  writing 
to  his  sister  in  Scotland,  “I  have  just  seen 
one  of  my  black  sisters  toiling  up  the  steep 
path,  carrying  a heavy  burden;”  and  he 
goes  by  the  name  of  General  Gordon,  be- 
longing to  the  proud  English  race.  And  in 
the  same  spirit  the  young  aristocrat  of 
Eton,  Coleridge  Patteson,  refused  to  call 
the  heathen  of  the  South  Seas  “savages.” 
They  were  all  “men”  to  him.  Ziegenbald’s 
first  converts  in  India  were  slaves.  Once  in 
Cape  Colony  the  words  over  the  church- 
70 


Brotherhood 


doors  were,  “Dogs  and  Hottentots  not  ad- 
mitted.” But  not  for  long.  The  French 
governor  of  Madagascar  told  the  first  mis- 
sionary he  could  never  make  the  blacks 
Christians,  for  they  were  brutes.  The  mis- 
sionary waited  a bit,  and  then  published  his 
answer.  Hundreds  of  churches  and  thou- 
sands of  lay  preachers,  with  their  devout 
followers,  have  long  since  removed  the  in- 
hospitable sign  and  stilled  the  inhuman 
word. 

In  his  purpose  to  preach  the  Gospel  to 
the  poor,  the  missionary  is  in  line  with  the 
German  philosopher,  Wundt:  “Religion, 

moreover,  is  always  the  point  where  the 
man  who  is  debarred  from  all  higher  inter- 
ests of  intellectual  culture  can  meet  his  fel- 
low-men.” Sometimes  good  men  err  in 
this  matter,  as  when  Dr.  Durbin,  in  1859, 
said  that  his  plan  would  be  to  marry  into 
the  family  of  a rajah,  and  then,  by  means  of 
the  inherited  control  of  the  destinies  of  a 

71 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

few  millions,  he  would  speedily  accom- 
plish the  work  of  righteousness.  The  nod- 
ding of  this  Homer,  however,  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  outrunning  this  sorry 
dream  with  his  masterful  stewardship  of 
the  policy  of  our  Church.  Let  us  not  miss 
the  mark.  Let  us  not  follow  the  leaders  of 
caste  in  the  Orient  in  their  scorn  of  the 
“lower  classes.”  The  mandarin  Pung 
Kwang  Yen,  at  the  Chicago  Parliament  of 
Religions,  advised  missionaries  to  appeal  to 
the  upper  classes  by  offering  them  ad- 
vanced learning  and  technical  information. 
Our  foundation  is  not  culture  first,  and 
then  righteousness ; and  if  China  is  to  trail 
after  the  great  Teacher  she  must  have  not 
foremost  the  title  “Bachelor  of  Arts,”  but 
“Born  Again.”  One  B.  A.  is  divinely  fun- 
damental, the  other  is  humanly  inevitable. 
When  the  economic  reformer  cries  out,  “I 
am  for  men,”  it  is  high  time  for  the  Church 
to  pray  again  for  a true  vision  of  true  duty. 
72 


Brotherhood 


Bishop  Thoburn  tells  of  the  conversion 
of  a man  in  India  who  came  from  the  low- 
est caste,  if  he  was  not  indeed  an  outcast. 
His  surrender  placed  him  and  his  family 
upon  an  inclined  plane  upward  going,  and 
now  the  son  occupies  a high  social  and  of- 
ficial position  as  the  confidential  secretary 
of  the  governor  of  the  Northwest  Province 
of  India.  Schools?  Yes,  evermore  yes; 
but  not  unbaptized  with  the  Spirit  of 
Christ. 

No  one  can  read  the  story  of  the  black 
bishop  of  the  Niger,  Samuel  Adjai  Crow- 
ther,  without  having  forever  a better  base- 
line for  computing  the  possibilities  of  man- 
hood when  stirred  by  the  grace  of  God. 
He  was  born  in  1812  in  the  West  Coast  re- 
gion of  Africa,  was  enslaved  at  nine  years, 
and  sold  for  a horse ; bartered  again,  he 
suffered  intolerable  cruelties;  a third  time 
he  was  sold,  for  tobacco  and  rum ; sold 
again  to  the  Portuguese,  he  was  finally  re- 
73 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

deemed  from  slavery  and  rescued  by  a Brit- 
ish man-of-war.  His  conversion,  his  train- 
ing in  London,  his  consecration  as  bishop 
of  the  Niger  territory  in  1864,  are  signifi- 
cant milestones  in  the  life  of  a man  of  sim- 
ple piety,  of  great  intelligence,  and  of  mon- 
umental zeal. 

The  missionary  has,  all  down  the  ages, 
held  before  the  eyes  of  men  the  vision  of  a 
commonwealth  of  humanity.  The  prevail- 
ing conception  of  this  commonwealth  is 
that  of  a common  faith,  of  God  as  Father, 
and  Jesus  Christ  as  Brother.  In  a thou- 
sand things  unlike,  in  this  alike.  In  a 
thousand  features  of  a progressive  civiliza- 
tion differing,  in  this  held  together  by  a 
common  bond.  And  in  all  the  implications 
of  the  idea  of  brotherhood  the  missionary 
is  a notable  contributor  to  progress,  where 
many  least  look  for  proofs  of  his  influence. 
He  reaches  down  into  the  problems  of  labor 
with  mighty  ability  to  secure  settlement  of 
74 


Brotherhood 


difficulties,  and  to  gain  for  labor  a high 
place  of  honor  in  human  progress. 

No  other  type  of  leader  in  the  ages  has 
so  consistently  realized  the  peculiar  value 
of  the  ideal  he  has  held  aloft  in  its  rela- 
tion to  man  as  a toiler,  as  a conqueror  of 
the  natural  world,  as  one  destined  to  find  in 
commerce,  in  the  exchange  of  goods, 
whether  across  the  banks  of  the  Po  or  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific,  an  expression  of  his 
larger  life.  For  the  life  of  trade  is  peace, 
and  the  economic  argument  against  war  is 
only  the  reverse  side  of  the  appeal  of  the 
missionary  to  men  to  love  one  another. 
Speaking  broadly,  the  civilization  of  all  an- 
cient times,  as  Mackenzie  has  emphasized, 
was  bottomed,  not  on  the  subjection  of  na- 
ture by  man,  but  on  the  subjection  of  some 
races  by  others.  Naturally,  with  such  do- 
minion there  followed  cruelty,  luxury, 
sloth,  oblivion.  On  the  contrary,  a civiliza- 
tion which  rests  upon  the  undisturbed  ac- 
75 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

tivities  of  man  in  his  conquest  of  nature 
has  an  endless  task  and  an  exhaustless  field 
before  it;  and  once  given  peace,  fraternity, 
and  love,  labor  gets  its  highest  honor. 
When  man  puts  self  foremost  in  his  effort 
to  subdue  the  material  world,  he  gains  the 
triumph  of  an  hour,  and  dies  sighing  for 
other  worlds ; but  with  Christ  the  inspirer 
of  labor,  its  very  soul,  giving  it  reverence, 
a lifetime  will  not  be  enough  to  exhaust  the 
victory  of  toil,  and  one  world  will  be  more 
than  man  can  subdue. 

When  the  good  day  comes  for  which  the 
herald  of  the  cross  runs  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  the  Carpenter’s  Son  will  be  seen 
building  in  unembarrassed  and  free  power 
with  both  hands,  not,  as  some  of  old,  with 
a sword  in  one  hand  and  a trowel  in  the 
other,  but  commanding  all  His  omnipotent 
resources  for  the  redemption  of  all  the 
needs  of  the  world,  and  giving  to  the  task 
both  hands  with  the  same  abandon  of  love 

76 


Brotherhood 


with  which  He  stretched  them  out  upon 
the  cross  of  Calvary. 

It  can  not  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of 
the  thoughtful  that,  as  man  has  gained 
recognition  in  the  capacity  of  the  toiler,  he 
has  reached  up  and  secured  a place  in  the 
realm  of  government.  Democracy  is  in 
the  air.  The  worth  of  the  representative 
republicanism  of  America  is  far-famed. 
Mr.  Bryce  has  said  that  the  American  type 
is  that  to  which  all  others  are  inevitably 
tending.  Cavour  declared  that  “Society  is 
marching  with  long  strides  toward  democ- 
racy. . . . Is  it  a good?  Is  it  an  evil? 

I know  little  enough,  but  it  is,  in  my  opin- 
ion, the  inevitable  future  of  humanity.”  If 
the  form  of  government  which  is  of,  by, 
and  for  the  people  is  to  be  imperishable,  it 
will  become  so  only  as  the  world  rises  to 
the  high  valuation  set  by  Paul,  by  Aidan, 
by  Xavier,  by  Eliot,  by  John  Hunt,  by  Al- 
exander Mackaye,  by  Henry  Martyn,  by 

77 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

James  Thoburn,  by  Hudson  Taylor  upon 
the  common  man  of  the  world. 

The  larger  field  of  the  exercise  of  the 
spirit  of  brotherhood  affords  a dazzling 
view  of  what  is  to  be  the  ultimate  result  of 
the  missionary  experiment.  If  the  dream 
of  peace  on  earth  is  to  be  realized,  it  will 
be  by  pushing  to  its  limit  the  ideals  of  the 
missionary,  who  lifts  into  noble  promi- 
nence, and  with  unfailing  sanity  of  vision 
and  unconquerable  zeal,  moral  and  spiritual 
causes  of  progress.  He  holds  that  the  ex- 
planation of  the  willingness  of  men  to  be 
ruled  by  majorities,  in  the  spread  of  demo- 
cratic ideas,  is  not  to  be  discovered  in  phys- 
ical force,  as  so  often  claimed  on  the 
ground  that  three  men  are  stronger  than 
two  men,  but  in  moral  causes.  In  human 
progress  it  is  becoming  evident,  as  Canon 
Freemantle  has  pithily  said,  “We  must,  I 
repeat,  learn  to  lean  on  the  unselfish  much 
more  than  on  the  selfish  impulses  of  man- 

78 


Brotherhood 


kind.”  Apply  this  principle  to  the  tangled 
schemes  of  diplomacy  among  men  to-day 
and  in  the  future.  It  may  be  that  there  is 
no  well-defined  system  of  diplomatic  pro- 
cedure, or  such  a thing  as  a concert  of  na- 
tions near  at  hand,  to  justify  the  optimist 
in  his  hopes,  but  that  we  are  on  the  trail  of 
the  peacemaking  itinerants  of  the  ages  is 
evident  from  the  statements  of  such  great 
writers  on  international  questions  as  Blunt- 
schli,  who  declares  that  the  arbitration  of 
international  difficulties  is  more  difficult  be- 
cause men  do  not  know  how  to  establish 
necessary  courts  than  because  they  are  un- 
willing or  have  not  the  power  to  do  so.  In 
any  event,  knowledge  and  will  and  power 
can  not  fail  to  come  to  their  proper  king- 
dom when  the  popular  mind  and  heart  are 
filled  with  the  same  vision  of  fraternity  as 
gave  to  the  Master  the  unspeakable  charm 
with  which  He  has  woven  a glorious  spell 
over  an  increasing  host  of  souls  in  the  pass- 

79 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

ing  of  the  ages.  His  “Kingdom”  is  to 
come.  The  character  of  “The  Kingdom” 
explains,  demands,  and  secures  its  su- 
premacy. It  is  aggressive,  missionary,  and 
not  stationary.  “The  righteousness  of 
which  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment speak,  is  one  which  goes  beyond  its 
possessor ; not  a righteousness  which  is 
even  with  a law,  but  a righteousness  like 
that  of  Christ,  loving,  merciful,  beneficent, 
self-sacrificing,  and  universal  in  its  appli- 
cation. It  can  never  rest  content  until  it 
has  assimilated  to  itself  all  the  spheres  of 
life  with  which  it  has  to  do.  This  alone  has 
the  promise  of  the  Gospel  attached  to  it. 
But  he  who  dwells  upon  the  universal  love 
of  the  Eternal  Father,  and  believes  that  the 
self-sacrifice  of  Christ  had  the  salvation  of 
the  world  for  its  object,  will  not  find  it 
hard  to  believe  in  the  full  extension  of  that 
which  St.  Paul  called  ‘the  mighty  working 
whereby  he  is  able  to  subdue  all  things  to 
80 


Brotherhood 


himself.'  ” With  such  a vision  Freemantle 
inflames  our  hearts. 

The  faith  the  missionary  proclaims  is 
mighty,  not  because  it  is  a fixed  and  un- 
changing expression  of  God’s  love  for  men 
which  he  is  called  upon  to  defend  against 
all  comers,  but  a spiritual  power,  windlike, 
its  origin  and  its  goal  often  undiscoverable, 
but  its  energy  felt  beyond  all  doubt.  To 
change  the  figure,  it  is  leaven  with  exhaust- 
less energy  and  sure  of  spreading  to  the 
limit  of  the  mass  of  which  it  is  any  part 
whatever,  always  its  own  best  evidence,  af- 
fecting for  good  all  hearts  and  all  institu- 
tions and  all  governments,  and  by  its  very 
inmost  principle  of  life  tending  to  universal 
triumph. 

And  thus  have  the  ends  of  the  earth  come 
together ; for  though  our  file-leader  of 
progress  goes  out  alone,  he  returns  with 
such  tributes  to  his  might  as  no  other  mes- 
senger ever  garnered.  Men  are  brothers, 
6 81 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

the  world  over.  Some  quote  the  first  two 
lines  of  what  follows,  from  Kipling,  to 
prove  the  irreconcilable  difference  between 
the  mind  and  character  of  the  East  and  the 
West;  but  they  should  finish  the  stanza: 

“O,  the  East  is  East,  and  the  West  is  West ; 

And  never  the  twain  shall  meet, 

Till  earth  and  sky  stand  presently 
Before  God’s  judgment-seat. 

But  there  is  neither  East  nor  West, 

Nor  border,  nor  breed,  nor  birth, 

When  two  strong  men  stand  face  to  face, 

Though  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.” 

The  final  word  is  that  of  the  great  Apos- 
tle to  the  Gentiles : 

“We  warn  every  one,  and  instruct  every 
one,  with  all  the  wisdom  we  possess,  in  the 
hope  of  bringing  every  one  into  God’s  pres- 
ence perfected  by  union  with  Christ.” 


82 


V 


Philosophy 

The  missionary  has  found  the  key,  the 
“master-key,”  to  history.  He  has  no  such 
mixture  of  views  as  Fourier,  who  had  for 
his  key  “the  theory  of  universal  harmony,” 
and  yet,  in  his  deranged  imagination,  be- 
lieved the  ocean  should  be  lemonade,  and 
that  there  should  be  thirty-seven  million 
poets,  philosophers,  and  writers  like 
Homer,  Newton,  and  Moliere.  He  is  not 
inconsistent  like  Michelet,  who,  looking  for 
“ideas  under  events,”  put  the  Stoic  above 
the  Christian,  and  made  Christianity  merely 
a stage  in  the  revelation  of  reason — a verse 
in  a universal  Bible.  Nor  does  he,  like 
Hegel,  regard  history  as  following  the 
course  of  the  sun,  .going  from  East  to 
83 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

West.  Nor,  like  Herder,  does  he  count 
history  to  be  the  manifestation  of  the 
powers  of  nature  in  moral  progress.  Nor 
is  he  like  Comte,  who  finds  the  law  of  his- 
tory in  the  evolution  of  the  intellect.  Nor 
does  he,  like  Renan,  regard  religion  to  be 
a sort  of  superior  kind  of  poetry.  The  true 
missionary  is  thoroughly  practical.  In  the 
exercise  of  his  divine  calling  he  counts  all 
good  as  the  inspiration  of  his  Lord  and  a 
part  of  the  Kingdom  he  toils  to  usher  in 
among  men ; and  he  holds  tenaciously  to  the 
notion  that  the  uplift  he  seeks  is  one  which 
includes  all  the  various  powers  and  activi- 
ties of  men,  played  upon  by  every  good 
agency  furnished  by  God,  Jesus  Christ  be- 
ing the  Chief  Corner-stone  of  the  whole 
glorious  structure ; and  thus,  even  more 
than  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  he  believes 
that  history  declares  the  glory  of  God. 

The  missionary  is  not  a captive  running 
a gauntlet,  depending  upon  his  fleet  foot  to 
84 


Philosophy 


win  his  freedom.  He  is  an  epitome  of 
Christianity  on  a march.  He  is  an  ever- 
present challenge,  not  an  obnoxious 
apology,  in  the  face  of  all  faiths  and  creeds. 
His  victory  is  one  of  high  practical  advan- 
tage to  the  race.  He  is  more  concerned 
about  life  than  dogma.  As  the  rationalist, 
Lecky,  has  declared,  he  is  the  builder  of 
“the  only  example  of  a religion  which  is 
not  naturally  weakened  by  civilization,” 
and,  we  may  add,  the  only  example  of  a 
religion  having  supreme  power  both  to 
adapt  itself  to  alien  peoples  and  to  work  out 
their  purification,  unweakened  by  passage 
of  time,  never  so  vigorous  as  now,  and  soon, 
by  the  hand  of  God,  to  achieve  after  a fash- 
ion never  dreamed  of  in  past  days  the  su- 
premacy of  The  Kingdom  over  all  king- 
doms. 

The  glory  of  his  theory  is  that  it  works. 
What  he  has  done  in  the  two  millenniums 
just  closing  is  ample  praise  of  the  genius  of 
85 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

the  missionary  for  bringing  things  to  pass. 
All  needed  backing  of  approval  that  one 
could  wish  is  his.  No  one  has  had  more 
glorious  success  in  applying  a theory  to 
practice.  If  his  program  holds  out  to  the 
end  of  his  days,  he  will  need  to  show  him- 
self approved  to  the  most  advanced  thought 
of  progress.  For  the  ages  discover  some 
things  in  their  march,  and  either  sanction 
for  further  usage  unworn  theories,  create 
new  explanations  of  old  deeds,  or  lay  down 
new  programs  for  future  action.  But 
human  philosophy  is  still  saying  to  the 
plans,  the  prospects,  and  the  progress  of 
the  missionary,  “Amen !”  It  is  worth  not- 
ing that  the  new  philosophic  tendency,  the 
latest  school  of  thought,  getting  to  itself  a 
fresh  setting  and  emphasis  on  American 
soil,  is  set  forth  in  the  opposition  on  the 
part  of  Professor  William  James  and  others 
to  the  overemphasis  of  intellectualism,  the 
rationalism  of  traditional  philosophy.  Man 
86 


Philosophy 


is  active,  creative,  and  thought  and  intellect 
are  auxiliary  functions  in  the  process  of 
realizing  his  destiny.  The  ultimate  princi- 
ple of  mind  is  not  therefore  intellect,  but 
will.  Intellectual  interests  are  secondary  to 
practical  interests,  and  derive  their  value 
and  content  therefrom.  Man  is  not  solving 
his  problems  in  a vacuum,  but  “the  degree 
of  his  intelligence  and  the  terms  of  his  in- 
telligence are  determined  by  the  practical 
needs  of  life.”  So  the  philosopher  reaches 
the  conclusion  that  any  theory  is  true  that 
works,  that  supports  the  interests  of  life  in- 
volved in  it.  This  makes  belief  a possible 
program  of  action,  and  faith  becomes  the 
living,  active  attitude  of  realizing  an  ideal. 
Action,  then,  is  man’s  true  destiny.  Only 
thus  can  he  fill  his  life  with  meaning.  Only 
thus  can  he  justify  his  claim  that  life  is 
worth  living,  namely,  by  making  it  worth 
while  to  live.  So  we  have  come  to  believe 
that  the  practical  grounds  the  theoretical, 
87 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

and  not  the  reverse.  “Be  ye  doers  of  the 
work,”  is  a genuine  forecast  of  the  latest 
expression  of  truth  on  the  banks  of  the 
Charles.  “The  world  will  be  richer  in  spir- 
itual realities  in  coming  years  as  the  crea- 
tive activities  of  those  who  believe  in  spir- 
itual realities  bring  it  into  being  and  give 
it  supremacy.” 

Thus  is  the  word  of  the  Master  justified: 
“Jesus  answered  them,  and  said,  My  doc- 
trine is  not  Mine,  but  His  that  sent  Me.  If 
any  man  will  do  [wills  to  do]  His  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine.” 

If  this  is  not  a description  of  the  char- 
acter and  work  of  the  missionary,  it  will  be 
hard  to  invent  a truer  one.  His  conquer- 
ing faith  is  his  program  of  action.  He  is 
evermore  interpreting  the  world  to  itself,  as 
he  goes  about  revealing  God  in  His  grace 
to  man.  He  lifts  into  high  prominence  the 
prevailing  tendency  to  look  upon  the  de- 
fense of  Christianity,  not  as  a matter  ex- 
88 


Philosophy 


ternal  to,  but  part  of,  religion.  The  shift- 
ing of  belief  from  the  merely  intellectual 
to  the  moral  portion  of  human  nature  is  a 
sign  of  the  times  that  demands  attention. 
Each  dogma  may  embody  and  express 
truth,  but  only  in  part;  and,  after  all,  it 
needs  the  vivifying  power  of  that  truth  to 
give  it  worth. 

Herein  is  the  unity  of  history.  We  live 
in  a moral  universe.  Prophets  and  apostles 
saw  a divine  unity  in  the  moral  unfolding 
of  the  ages.  Where  fruitless  theorists 
feared  disintegration,  they  discovered  a 
glorious  synthesis.  Where  others  found 
cheap  content  with  fragmentariness,  they 
encouraged  a noble  curiosity  and  search 
for  the  secret  of  the  ages.  They  fastened 
themselves  to  the  center  of  things,  and  be- 
held with  calm  faces  the  living  reality,  abid- 
ing and  undisturbed.  They  were  spiritual 
in  an  age  of  orthodox  ritualists ; patriots 
in  an  age  of  orthodox  traitors ; heavenly- 
89 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

minded  in  an  age  of  orthodox  worldlings ; 
idealists  in  an  age  of  orthodox  materialists ; 
faithful  and  positive  in  an  age  of  orthodox 
skeptics ; and  brave  in  an  age  of  orthodox 
cowards.  Their  visions  helped  to  make  his- 
tory after  the  fashion  of  God’s  thinking 
and  will.  The  spirit  of  the  prophet  is  that 
of  the  missionary. 

We  dare  not  get  away  from  this  view 
of  the  world-movement.  The  missionary  is 
in  line  with  the  thought  of  a universal  Gos- 
pel. He  links  hands  with  the  Master  in 
His  closing  words  in  St.  Matthew’s  Gospel, 
he  grasps  the  hand  of  St.  Paul  in  Athens; 
he  echoes  St.  Peter’s  hope  of  the  new  world 
in  which  dwelleth  “righteousness he 
anoints  his  eyes  with  the  apocalyptic  splen- 
dors of  Revelation : “The  kingdoms  of  this 
world  are  become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord 
and  of  His  Christ.’’ 

The  recognition  of  God  and  the  moral 
order  inevitably  tends  to  universality.  Po- 
90 


Philosophy 


litical  development  tends  to  unity  and  or- 
ganization of  moral  relations.  The  human 
race  is  being  drawn  together.  Ideas  are  in 
the  mart  for  rapid  exchange.  Fellowships 
and  moral  sentiments  are  not  to  be  made 
supports  for  selfish  materialism.  So  the 
philosophy  of  history  is  a sort  of  clearing- 
house of  all  human  facts,  and  the  purpose 
of  history  is  ever  charming  foremost  minds. 
The  philosopher  may  have  discovered  the 
stream  of  tendency,  yet  have  hesitated  to 
define  the  goal.  The  missionary  balks  not 
at  this,  for  he  sees  the  end  of  all  things  in 
their  holy  consummation  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Kant  dreamed  of  a sound  political  consti- 
tution ; Herder  pointed  the  path  to  mental 
liberty  and  individual  freedom ; Guizot 
looked  to  the  complete  sociality  of  the 
process  of  civilization ; yet,  in  all,  the  vague 
note  and  the  dim  vision  sound  in  the 
rhythm  and  grow  dull  in  the  color  of  the 
dream.  St.  Paul  and  David  Livingstone 
91 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

are  so  sure  of  the  divine  goal  that  they 
calmly  die  and  pass  on  to  others  their  com- 
mission, the  one  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber, 
the  other  in  the  marshes  of  pagan  Africa. 

And  when  the  modern  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution, with  whatever  modifications  may 
mark  its  further  statements,  sets  before  us 
its  view  of  unity,  its  tracing  of  a single 
principle  of  life  working  through  all  known 
forms  of  life,  “so  that  the  barriers  fall 
away  which  seemed  to  separate  organic 
from  inorganic  matter,  or  species  from 
species,  or  animal  from  man,  or,  to  carry 
the  thought  to  its  fullest  result,  ordinary 
men  from  Christ,”  it  will  appear  that  this 
is  not  other  than  to  affirm  the  doctrine  of 
the  Spirit  and  the  Word  working  upwards 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  evermore 
keeping  in  eye  the  consummate  form,  and 
the  loftiest  power,  and  the  holiest  ideal  of 
human  development. 


92 


Philosophy 


These  all  unite  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  the 
Word  fits  once  more: 

“Wherefore  God  hath  highly  exalted 
Him,  and  given  Him  a Name  which  is 
above  every  name.” 


93 


VI 


Enthusiasm 

In  one  other  light  the  man  of  whom  I 
write  has  always  been  supreme:  in  his  en- 
thusiasm. From  the  days  when  the  Jewish 
synagogue  and  the  Roman  Senate  failed  to 
confine  within  its  original  limits  the  new 
Faith,  down  to  the  days  in  which  the  East 
India  Company  sent  a solemn  memorial  to 
Parliament  declaring  that  “the  sending  of 
Christian  missionaries  into  our  Eastern  pos- 
sessions is  the  maddest,  most  extravagant, 
most  expensive,  and  most  unwarrantable 
project  that  was  ever  proposed  by  a lunatic 
fanatic,”  this  man  put  up  against  the  stoic 
spirit  that  dominated  the  Eternal  City  that 
contagious  sympathy  with  human  suffering, 
and  against  the  infernal  selfishness  of  the 
94 


Enthusiasm 


great  commercial  monopoly  that  sublime 
devotion  to  the  will  of  God,  before  which 
adamant  melts  like  wax.  To-day  the  Com- 
pany is  a bad  memory,  while  hundreds  of 
churches  dot  the  banks  of  the  Ganges. 
What  will  you  call  that  which  led  Carey  to 
work  seven  years  to  get  one  disciple ; or 
the  Moravians  in  the  mountains  of  Tibet  to 
wait  from  1856  to  1879  for  their  first  bap- 
tized convert ; or  that  kept  the  Church  Mis- 
sionary Society  in  Foochow  for  eleven 
years,  like  the  needle  to  the  pole,  without 
a single  addition?  This  spirit  is  supreme 
after  two  millenniums  of  trial.  It  shows  no 
sign  of  degeneracy.  The  stamp  of  the 
Divine  is  upon  it.  It  comes  to  the  home 
Church  at  this  time  with  power  for  inspira- 
tion just  as  men  are  saying  that  enthusiasm 
is  dying  out. 

This  is  the  tercentenary  of  the  publica- 
tion of  the  immortal  “Don  Quixote,”  and 
well  do  Spaniards  celebrate  the  fame  of 
.95 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

Cervantes.  Heine  said,  “It  was  the  great- 
est satire  against  human  enthusiasm  ever 
penned.”  Is  he  right?  He  can  not  be. 
“No  one,  not  even  a Cervantes,  can  make 
a satire  against  human  enthusiasm.  On 
that  vast  target  every  arrow  must  lose  it- 
self.” Cervantes  shattered  the  dream  of 
Chivalry  that  he  might  give  substance  to 
the  hopes  of  true  zeal,  of  real  daring,  and 
of  enduring  self-devotion.  He  substituted 
the  modern  for  the  mediaeval  world,  the 
world  of  realities  for  that  of  shams,  and 
for  the  knight  who  took  a tilt  at  windmills 
he  ushered  in  “the  valiant  man  and  true.” 
This  divine  fire  will  respond  to  all  calls.  It 
makes  good  against  all  despair.  It  sees  in 
brown  skins  men  for  whom  Christ  gave 
Himself  to  the  Jerusalem  mob.  It  pulls  out 
the  Cambridge  cricket  champions,  the 
famous  Studd  brothers,  from  their  round 
of  excitements  in  England,  and  extem- 
porizes a mission  in  Central  China.  When 
96 


Enthusiasm 


one  man  falls,  it  offers  a score.  James 
Hannington  is  murdered  in  Africa.  A me- 
morial service  is  held  at  Oxford  with  two 
thousand  men  present  to  grit  their  teeth 
and  vainly  grieve.  A speaker  in  closing 
asked,  “Who  will  take  Jim  Hannington’s 
place?”  Two  hundred  men  rose  to  their 
feet.  It  will  not  fail  to  make  its  appeal  to 
the  home  Church  if  pulpit  and  pew  only 
get  to  know  of  the  endless  jubilee  in  mis- 
sionary biography.  It  is  the  most  transfer- 
able of  all  earth’s  riches.  It  gains  by  go- 
ing. The  “Haystack  Monument”  at  Wil- 
liams College,  while  it  celebrates  a noble 
passion  for  souls  in  the  hearts  of  Mills, 
Richards,  Rice,  and  Hall,  will  yet  crumble 
before  the  enthusiasm  their  self-surrender 
generated  ceases  to  exert  its  wholesome  en- 
ergies for  the  good  of  men.  A flaming  life 
is  a perpetual  stimulus.  David  Brainerd 
led  his  class  at  Yale,  gave  himself  to  the 
Indians,  and  burned  to  the  socket,  but  not 
7 97 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

till  he  set  in  motion  an  ideal  passion  for 
men  under  which  Levi  Parsons,  first 
Protestant  missionary  to  Jerusalem,  and 
Carey,  Chalmers,  and  Martyn  leaped  at  the 
call  of  God.  Adoniram  Judson,  first-honor 
man  of  his  class  at  Brown  University,  was 
keyed  up  to  his  mission  work  by  a holy  de- 
termination under  whose  spur  he  defied 
twenty-one  months  of  prison  life  in  the 
East,  part  of  the  time  in  the  cage  in  which 
a lion  had  died.  This  expansive  philan- 
thropy corrals  whole  families  for  service. 
Dr.  H.  L.  Gulick  went  to  the  Micronesian 
Islands,  and  thirty-five  years  were  not  suf- 
ficient to  wilt  his  dauntless  spirit.  His  next 
younger  brother  went  to  Spain,  and  a still 
younger  brother  left  for  Japan.  So  they 
are  to  go  on  till  the  King  is  universally 
heralded.  To  no  class  of  workers  for  the 
uplift  of  humanity  is  the  declaration  of 
Emerson  so  fitting  as  to  the  missionaries 
of  the  cross:  “Every  great  and  command- 

98 


Enthusiasm 


mg  movement  in  the  annals  of  the  world  is 
the  triumph  of  enthusiasm.” 

We  have  spoken  much  of  men  engaged 
in  the  cause  of  spreading  the  truth.  But, 
of  late,  they  have  been  greatly  re-enforced 
by  women,  and  a shining  procession  of 
world-saviors  goes  by.  There  is  Mrs. 
Hannah  Marshman,  first  woman  mission- 
ary to  India ; Lydia  Mary  Fay,  the  first  sin- 
gle woman  sent  to  China ; Miss  Clara 
Swain,  the  inaugurator  of  the  first  medical 
work  among  women  in  Asia ; Fidelia  Fiske, 
in  Persia ; Ann  Wilkins,  in  Liberia ; Mrs. 
Hannah  Mullens,  who  founded  the  zenana 
missions  in  India;  and  Miss  Isabella  Tho- 
burn,  whose  work  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges  is  alive  for  evermove. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  missionary  is 
boundless.  It  reckons  all  is  lost  unless 
Christ  is  enthroned.  It  confronts  obsta- 
cles as  if  they  were  a plain  path ; it  glories 
in  matching  its  power,  against  opposition 

99 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

of  the  most  gigantic  character;  it  glows  in 
the  heart  that  beats  high  with  hope  even 
when  the  storm  is  at  its  utmost.  It  blazes 
up  from  the  passion  of  death-beds.  John 
Hunt  lay  dying.  The  attendant  friends 
noted  how  he  kept  on  silently  weeping.  His 
emotions  increased,  and  he  sobbed  as  if  in 
acute  distress.  No  longer  able  to  with- 
hold himself,  he  cried  out:  “Lord,  bless 
Fiji!  save  Fiji!  Thou  knowest  my  soul 
has  loved  Fiji;  my  heart  has  travailed  in 
pain  for  Fiji!”  His  own  prospect  was  un- 
clouded. His  treasures,  wife  and  children, 
were  in  the  upper  kingdom.  Mr.  Calvert 
said  to  him,  “The  Lord  knows  you  love 
Fiji.  We  know  it.”  For  awhile  he  grew 
quiet,  but  the  burden  was  heavy.  Finally 
lifting  his  hand,  mighty  in  its  trembling,  he 
cried  with  passionate  force:  “O,  let  me 
pray  once  more  for  Fiji.  Lord,  for  Christ’s 
sake,  bless  Fiji,  save  Fiji!”  Then  he  grew 
quiet,  and  reached  his  end  in  unbroken 
100 


Enthusiasm 


peace.  Such  glowing  love  can  have  no  fail- 
ure. It  shares  the  omnipotence  of  God,  in- 
spired as  it  is  from  contact  with  His  own 
heart.  It  looks  at  the  world-problem  from 
the  same  point  of  view  the  Master  had  on 
the  cross.  It  sees,  hears,  feels,  toils  with 
the  eyes,  ears,  heart,  and  hands  of  the 
Christ.  It  does  not  mark  its  sacrifices. 
Hear  David  Livingstone  addressing  the 
young  men  of  Cambridge  University:  “I 
never  made  a sacrifice.  Of  this  we  ought 
not  to  talk  when  we  remember  the  great 
sacrifice  which  He  made  who  left  His 
Father’s  throne  on  high  to  give  Himself 
for  us;  ‘who  being  the  brightness  of  His 
Father’s  glory,  and  the  express  image  of 
His  person,  and  upholding  all  things  by  the 
word  of  His  power,  when  He  had  by  Him- 
self purged  our  sins,  sat  down  on  the  right 
hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high.’  ” 

The  missionary  joins  the  host  of  heroes 
in  all  ages  who  have  made  free  contribu- 
101 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

tions  of  trial,  of  toil,  of  love,  of  life  itself, 
for  us  and  our  children,  who  bear  lighter 
burdens  now  because  they  bore  heavier 
ones  then.  He  gets  into  noble  company, 
and  with  fullest  right  of  comradeship.  He 
holds  rank  with  Milton,  who  was  upheld  in 
his  dishonored  old  age,  blind,  poor,  and  at 
the  mercy  of  an  indecent  Stuart  rule,  yet 
in  himself  able  to  cheer  coming  ages  with 
the  vision  of  a man  reliant,  tender,  brave, 
“amidst  the  ruin  of  all  he  loved  and  the 
obscene  triumph  of  all  he  despised.”  With 
Dante,  he  walks  forth  outlawed  and  into 
exile,  yet  singing  a song  of  liberty  and  for 
ultimate  peace.  He  is  as  serene  as  the  noble 
philosopher  of  the  French  Revolution,  Con- 
dorcet,  a victim  of  its  fury,  who,  pursued  to 
his  death,  surrounded  by  all  the  chaos  and 
bloodshed  of  its  bitterest  days,  spent  his 
last  hours  in  sketching  the  vision  of  a 
happy  future,  in  which  all  nations  should 
rise  to  a common  level,  all  separate  peoples 
102 


Enthusiasm 


should  progress  towards  equality,  and  the 
lot  of  man  should  achieve  practical  amel- 
ioration. It  has  not  been  many  years  since 
Bishop  Hannington,  shut  in  by  hostile  sav- 
ages in  the  heart  of  Africa,  and  awaiting 
inhuman  death  at  their  hands,  composed 
himself  to  write  as  usual  in  his  diary  and 
to  quote  from  Bickersteth  the  melodious 
lines : 

“ Peace,  perfect  peace,  our  future  all  unknown  ? 

Jssus  we  know,  and  He  is  on  the  throne.” 

One  of  the  graduates  of  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity, in  1878,  was  Keitl^Ealconer,  third 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Kintore,  taking  principal 
honors  in  Hebrew  and  Arabic,  a foremost 
athlete,  and  an  earnest  Christian.  He  went 
as  a missionary  to  Aden  that  he  might 
reach  the  Mohammedans  of  Southern 
Arabia,  and  there,  in  1886,  this  high-born 
hero  died  on  a bed  of  fever,  as  truly  a 
martyr  as  the  Oxford  oarsman,  Hanning- 
ton, from  the  stroke  of  the  savage.  Surely 
103 


Missionary  Interpretation  of  History 

the  missionary  is  not  lacking  in  power  to 
walk  with  the  choicest  of  souls  and  to  claim 
fellowship  with  leaders  of  thought  and  of 
action.  After  all  is  said, 

“ The  greatest  gift  a hero  leaves  his  race 
Is  to  have  been  a hero.  So  we  fail  ? 

We  feed  the  high  tradition  of  the  world.” 

Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs  well  expressed  the  glory 
of  the  conquering  faith  of  this  man  with- 
out whom  history  would  possess  another 
meaning:  “He  expects  long  toil,  dreary 
wildernesses,  battles  with  giants,  and 
spasms  of  fean^jn  the  heart  of  the  Church. 
But  he  looks,  as  surely  as  he  looks  for  the 
sunrise  after  nights  of  tempest  and  of  lin- 
gering dawn,  for  the  ultimate  illumination 
of  the  world  by  Faith.  And  however  full 
of  din  and  dissonance  the  history  of  man- 
kind has  seemed  hitherto,  seems  even  to- 
day, he  anticipates  already  the  harmonies 
to  be  in  it  as,  under  the  guidance  of  Him  of 
Galilee,  it  draws  toward  its  predestined 
104 


Enthusiasm 


close,  not  sentimental  or  idyllic,  but  epic 
and  heroic.”  May  the  whole  Church  be 
aroused  by  the  contagion  of  this  man’s  wis- 
dom, his  faith,  his  heroism,  to  speed  the 
work  of  the  world’s  redemption,  until  on- 
lookers shall  not  be  skeptical  when  we  cry 
out,  with  Zinzendorf,  “I  have  but  one  pas- 
sion, and  it  is  He — He  only!” 

Thus  will  it  be  to  the  end  of  the  mighty 
task,  and  when  the  glorious  triumph  is 
finally  won : 

“For  of  Him,  and  through  Him,  and  to 
Him,  are  all  things;  to  whom  he  glory  for- 
ever. Amen.” 


105 


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